Iceland: With blue whale for port is written by Jacob Gowland Jørgensen
Listen to the article here:
A cold pleasure
A fresh morning in the north to Iceland the proud sailing ship Haukur stands out from the harbor, and there is a high mood on board. 20 tourists have fought their way up in the northeastern corner of Iceland, where Husavik is located. Husavik means 'the cove where the house is located', and here landed the first Viking of his time from Norway looking for a new life.
We also have to go out to look for life, because the bay exudes life with over 15 different types of dolphin and whale as well as the beautiful puffin, which in English has had an entire island named after it: 'Puffin Island'.
We can already feel life as soon as we get on board Haukur, because it is five Icelandic degrees, and we are shaking from the cold, even though we have put on all our clothes - just to take the top of the humid monster cold.
Luckily, there are survival suits for everyone, even for our 2-year-old daughter, and as they pull the basket out with the remains of the local sheep in the form of hats, mittens and blankets, the heat begins to spread.
We are ready.
The faithful parrot
The puffin is seen in many travel books about Iceland, and it is a completely unique small size. It is so faithful as marriage that one should probably consider reassessing one's relationship about who is the most primitive of it and man.
Early on, it finds a best friend with whom it shares everything, and if the tragic thing happens that the only one does not come home from a cold flight, it finds another after some time, so that the family can be carried on.
But if the old parrot then stands on the edge of the nest one day and beeps something that now the new one can see fluttering away, then the younger model smokes out immediately. Not so much nonsense; smut pomfrit - mama is home.
We see tons of the faithful parrots, even though they are hard to get close to, and because of their small size are quite difficult to capture with a camera. Especially when you are on rocking ground, and at the same time they run fast on the gray waves to get their butt in the air.
What is that fish?
The ship now sets course in the middle of the bay, and soon playful dolphins appear, which jump around us a bit before slipping on to better playgrounds. Haukur creaks a bit and the sun warms us so we can throw off some of the clothes.
Our daughter Maya thought the birds were fine, but this cozy sailing in moon suits is about to be a little too far, and where were those funny fish her parents had lured with all morning?
Our guide and whale spotter shout as called: "There is something big, really big", and the captain puts full throttle in the direction of a fine, concentrated fog in the air. A wave of anticipation washes over us. What's it out there?
The guide looks at the captain wonderingly and shouts: "What is that, I have not seen this before !?". Then they appear from below, one seems larger than the ship, maybe 20 meters long, while the other is a younger neat model of a 10-12 meters, both of them snort out from the large blow holes. They are huge and resilient like an athlete's body. The blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, is 15 meters from us and lives up to its name!
Maya excitedly exclaims: "Big fish, big fish", and we agree with her that it is a big fish swimming calmly with us. They are completely indifferent to our presence, because we are just a small fish in it havet compared to it.
They swim, they dive, we find them again, and they arrive as in a joint boat trip, and we look admiringly at them and the oily trail they leave in the water above them.
All the way in we eat hot cinnamon buns and talk about "the big fish" and are not quite sure that we saw what we saw. There was a good enough whale guarantee on the trip, but we met not just one, but two blue whales - it is simply a world-class nature trip.
The guide says that there are only about 6.000 blue whales left in the world, so it is highly surprising, even though they like to get past up here.
I think that this summer I have had three experiences that I never thought I would have: 1) To be at a concert with Nik & Jay - it was absolutely involuntary, albeit fun). 2) To get to the Olympics (entered the swimming competitions in Beijing in an almost legal way). And 3) To see the largest animal that has ever lived, the blue whale.
The penis shows the way
On the way out of town in our small rental car, we see the advertisement for a penis museum, which is said to house some decent colossi from various local animals. We believe them and happily drive out of town and towards Lake Mývatn in full sunshine, which warms the country from 8 humid degrees to 18 spring degrees during the short trip through the beautiful Icelandic stone landscapes.
We get the day's second great nature experience on the crater rim of Viti by the large geothermal area Krafla, just east of the lake. Everything is boiling, and boiling mud and snow remains side by side.
Maya, who in record time has developed into a bit of a rock fetishist here in Iceland, happily settles down in a paradise world of strange rocks, while her parents soak up the surreal blue colors from the lake at the bottom of the crater.
We stand alone on the edge until a small tourist bus arrives, which disturbs their schedule, part of the stone fetishist, who manages to charm the whole herd and make 20 spruce-grown people wave like obsessed while driving away.
The world is wonderful. Both humans and blue whales.
Add comment