Sea, sunshine & whales

A flat sea, lots of sunshine and a beautiful mountain backdrop. North Sailing´s boat Gardar is leaving Husavik harbour and we are ready to look for some wildlife. We have the pleasure of meeting several Humpback whales in the bay of which one being very calm and sleepy. Each time before going on a deeper…

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To know a Humpback Whale

I went out with guide Sabrina for the 10 o’clock. I am still picking up a lot of her knowledge, she is an outstanding guide, her enthusiastic approach is very inspiring and I will be stealing a lot of her guiding technique in the future. It was quite the pleasent trip, a Humpback rolled over…

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A beautiful day for whale watching!

The 10 o´clock tour started with a small group of White-beaked dolphins just outside the harbour. Some adults and 1 calf swam close to the current lines which were creating some nice optical illusions in the water.   We saw a lot of blows of Humpback whales all around the bay and we ended up…

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Humpback whales everywhere

The last couple of weeks we have always had a lot of humpback whales here in the bay, but the number of humpback whales that we saw today was once again incredible! We left the harbour at 10:00 onboard “Garðar” and we had already heard from our friends on “Náttfari” (North Sailing’s second biggest boat)…

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The ideal whale watching

When Garðar went out for the trip at half past one o´clock the weather was really beautiful; it was summer warmth in the air and the seaward wind was minimal. The conditions for whale watching don’t get much better than this in Skjálfandi bay! We set our course to the mountains (Creek mountains) in the…

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Dolphins and more Dolphins

Ever since we had the bad weather few days ago the Dolphins have been coming more into the bay than before. And so we found some Dolphins on the 10 o’clock this morning, few Humpback Whales and a lonly Minke Whale. On top of that the weather is just unbelievable. Really relaxed and satisfying tour…

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Whatching a whale watching a boat

The job of the whale watching guide is probably one of few jobs that you actually are more than eager to work on your days off! At least when the weather is perfect (like today) and the bay filled with whales (like today). And that’s what I did, and I absolutely loved it! We went…

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Logging humpbacks

This morning it was a bit windy in Húsavík but out on sea it was actually calmer (usually it is the other way around). With a full boat we headed out and it wasn’t long until we found us the first set of humpback whales. They were logging (that means they were drifting like logs…

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Record-day for whale watching

Yesterday was a rather unusual day for North Sailing. Due to bad weather on monday and tuesday this week we unfortunately had to cancel some of our scheduled whale-watching tours. We felt sorry for our guests who had booked their tours for those two day and were so much looking forward to whale watching but…

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A sleepy humpback and italian kiss!

It was a calm Skjálfandi Bay that welcomed us this morning, after the stormy weather of yesterday. I actually thought it would be more wavy, but still, the sea was calm. And so was the first humpback we encountered! It had probably been asleep just few moments before we arrived, it looked actually very calm,…

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Safety training

Today the strong northern winds made us incapable of going whale watching. The wave buoy close to Grimsey Island showed 3.4 meters at the highest and the rain was pouring. Still we showed up for work, since captain Hrólfur had called us in for a safety training. We carefully went over the safety equipment on…

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Humpback mania – over hundred jumps

Following pictures were taken by captain Heimir Harðarson on schooner Haukur and Kjartan Pétur Sigurðsson, a passenger on m/s Garðar. Copyright:  Heimir Harðarson   Copyright: Heimir Harðarson   Copyright:  Heimir Harðarson   Copyright:  Heimir Harðarson   Copyright:  Heimir Harðarson   Copyright:  Kjartan Pétur Sigurðsson    

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Over and over again

One of the things I love about being a whale watching guide, is the excitement and joy I still feel – in every single tour! If anything, it only gets better. I started working as a guide in 2001 and of course I am loaded with great memories of both great whale watching tours and…

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A curious humpback

Today I went out with captain Hrólfur and the rest of the crew on Náttfari for both 10:00 and the 13:30 tour. The bay was calm and about half an hour after leaving harbor we encountered our first humpback. As in the blog posts from the last days the humpbacks have been ruling the bay,…

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Skjálfandi Bay at its best!

At 10´clock we left Husavik harbour and headed west, direction of the beautiful mountains across the bay. Unfortunately they were shrouded in white fluffy clouds. After a short while we sighted a big blow ahead and when approaching we saw a big splash after which the front flipper became visible and the Humpback whale started…

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The Humpbacks Rule the Bay

Two trips behind me now, the 10 o’clock and the 13:30. I had the priviledge to go along with Guide Sabrina and we handed the Microphone between us frequently. It turned out that she is an excellent Guide to say the least, her knowledge goes way beyond mine in so many ways and I did…

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A sleeping humpback whale

The weather conditions were fantastic when we left the harbour this morning: The sun was shining (we had up to 21°C in Húsavík today), the sea was calm, and our crew was optimistic that it would be a good tour….and we were right!   It started with a humpback whale that was spotted not far…

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The Blues are back!

Today was great. In the 10 o’clock trip we had a very close encounter with 3 Humpback Whales. They were so close to land that we had a lot of time to spare and took the detour to the Puffin Island, something we usually don’t do in the 3 hours trips. The Sail Boats on the other…

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Whales, dolphins & more!

It was a bit windy this morning, as me and captain Hrólfur headed out on the Skjálfandi Bay, looking for whales. We managed to take a good look at a humpback whale, while seeing more blows in a distance. In the 13:30 tour, the bay literally came to live! How wonderful! There were birds feeding…

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