Mærudagar in Húsavík

There is currently a festival going on in Húsavík called Mærudagar. It translates to something like Candydays. Because of Mærudagar there is a lot going on in Húsavík these days and especially in the harbour area including, but not limited to, beach volleyball, a horse show, a motorcycle show, a market, a ram show and…

Garðar ready for passengers

At midnight yesterday Garðar sailed for the first time into Skjálfandi bay with passengers. It was the annual Mærudagar midnight sailing trip and today was Garðar‘s first whale watching tour. It was a great success with minke whales, white beaked dolphins and fantastic weather.   Guide Þórdís in an extremely good mood.   The first…

High season and incredible weather

It‘s now high season and we are managing quite well despite Náttfari being out of action. The weather today is incredible and the harbour is bustling with life. Tourists waiting in lines to go whale watching, sitting outside both Gamli Baukur and Skuld enjoying the weather. North Sailing‘s employees are doing there best to find…

New website launched

The North Sailing website has undergone major renewal in the past couple of weeks. Through the main site (www.northsailing.is) you can now easily navigate to its sister pages, including the whale watching and schooner sites. The new design makes everything easier, from finding out basic information about our services to quickly checking out the daily…

Training and safety drill

A few days ago, some of our staff, namely the guides and the hard-working people in ticket sales, got the opportunity to better themselves even further.  A course in speech, presence and service was held in cooperation with Margrét, an actor, and Oddur Bjarni, a director. Most of us know both of them from Let’s…

July schedule taking effect soon

July is around the corner and from the 1st of July our new departure schedule will come into action. That includes 11 departures per day; 9 NS1-Whale Watching tours and 2 NS2-Whales, Puffins and Sails tours, the first leaving at 8:30 am and the last at 20:15 pm. July is our busiest month and we…

Hildur taken out sailing

There’s not a lot of work left to get Hildur ready. It was taken out for a tour with a few guests, some with notable sailing experience.  The tour went nicely and Hildur sailed well, experiencing both a nice and calm wind and a somewhat stronger breeze as well.  In the next few days, Hildur…

Still making progress on Garðar!

Garðar is at the pier and work has been ongoing to get him passenger ready.  There is still plenty of work to be done, for example painting in various places, placing benches as well as security equipment and many other smaller (or bigger!) tasks.  Quite a lot of work took place yesterday, and here you…

Garðar launched

There was a turning point in the shipyard today when Garðar finally got it’s mast and was then taken out and sailed for the first time after renovation. It didn’t go far though, not this time, just one round about the harbour. Then it was tied to the pier as it is not completely ready,…

Working in Garðar in the shipyard

There has been a great progress in the shipyard these last weeks. It won’t be long now until Garðar will be ready to sail out with excited passengers on board and it looks like it will be a really beautiful boat. The following pictures were taken in the last days.   Painting in the nice…

Schooner Hildur to Flensburg

Many good men have been working on the rebuilding of schooner Hildur this winter in Denmark and now it is seaworthy, even though no sails have been put up yet because of their late arrival from manufacturers in England and Norway.     The 14th of May Hildur sailed from Egernsund in Denmark over to…

Busy May day!

The day was busy for North Sailing as 3 boats were out at the same time having different assignments.   Bjössi Sör was out, twice actually, for the traditional whale watching tours with some 30 passengers.   Schooner Haukur went the first trip of the season picking up 14 passengers from Siglufjörður, 5 hours sailing away.…

Humpback is back

Humpback whales were spotted on the first tours this season in april but since then not, until today when Bjössi Sör and crew stumbled across a huge humpback quite close to Husavik harbour. 30 passengers of different nationalities were of course delighted to witness this huge animal that can be up to 17 meters in…

Minkes and porpoises

Today and yesterday, the bay was calm and the sun shining. Both days we went whale watching with success both days. We found 2 minke whales and were able to get close to both of them and watch them for a long time! There were also several harbour porpoises around and today we spotted a…

Cold but beautiful

Today was whale watching tour no. 4 this season. Bjössi Sör went out at 13:30 with 4 passengers and the weather was beautiful but rather cold. We sailed out towards the Puffin island where we saw thousands of puffins which are busy preparing their nests. This time, the whales did not show up but it´s…

Volcano eruption in South Iceland

  Today is the third day of volcanic eruption under Eyjafjallajökull glacier in the South of Iceland. Now it seems to be stable and it´s worth mentioning that there has been no ash fall in the North of Iceland were we´re located. It is completely safe to visit Húsavík and the northern part of Iceland…

The first Whale Watching tour of the year!

  Today at 13:30 Northsailing started the Whale Watching season when Bjössi Sör left the harbour with 10 passengers on board and together with Captain Hrólfur and Guide Nils.   After about 20 min. sailing, we found a Humpback whale which was in a good mood and did some tail splash for us. After a while, we carried on and set…

Gardar up in the shipyard

  One of the two newest Northsailing boats Gardar is now up in the Husavik shipyard for the first time for witch we can call a final touch, meaning both routine maintenance and repairing if require. This will probably take few veeks. This is the biggest wooden boat who have ever been in this shipyard…

Mast for Gardar

  This week, a work on new mast for Gardar started at Northsailings workshop, this is a Icelandic spruce tree from Hallormstad. The mast will be around 12 m high or little longer if we reckon the flagpole who will be attach with the mast. Her are some photos of the erly work on the…