We had a Whale of Time!

Our second port of call in Iceland was Akureyri. A small city in the north which is the cultural and commercial centre for this part of the world. Akureyri (pronounced ah-koo-rare-ee) stands strong as Iceland’s second city, but a Melbourne, Manchester or Montréal it is not. And how could it be with only 18,600 residents? It’s a wonder the city (which would be a ‘town’ anywhere else) generates this much buzz. Expect cool cafes, quality restaurants (some with not such palatable items on the menus), a handful of art galleries and even some late-night bustle – a far cry from other rural Icelandic towns.

One of the highlights here is whale watching and your chance to see the incredible Eyjafjord Humpbacks in their natural habitat.

This had to be our highlight of Iceland, a comfortable smallish boat left with our ship’s excursion, encouraged by the fact that every trip last month had seen whales. After 45 minutes of sailing the beautiful fjords, we heard what we wanted to hear. ‘Whales ahead’. For the next hour, we circled slowly watching two humpbacked whales feed. They only broke water every five minutes or so, and then only for a couple of seconds. But they were beautiful to watch. Soon we were alerted to a pod of 5 ahead and off we raced.

Apparently, Eyjaford has the highest success rate in sightings because of its short sailing distance to the whales feeding grounds. The Icelandic humpback uses the waters of Iceland to feed and the shores of Mexico for mating!

We were there in the middle of summer and it was freezing cold on the water. We were lucky the sun was shining and they did supply wet weather gear which was very warm and welcoming. After our 3 hour trip, we had some time to explore the town. it was a Sunday so not much was open. Iceland is very expensive so this was a relief.