My whole body was sparkling of excitement when the minke whale appeared right beside our boat. At that moment my track of time and space had completely vanished.

Captain Bessi and I went out this morning at 9.45 - on the very first tour of the season - curious about how the conditions in our bay would be. The first passengers was a group of people from Holland, ready to face the adventures of Skálfandi. Luckily the weather was on our side; sunshine, no wind, flat sea and amazing visibility. As good as it gets basically...

Together we headed straight out on the bay and bumped into our first minke whale just after a few minutes. During its deep dive we realised there were more minkes both north and south of us. Several times the whales came up so close that we could have touched them. These were incredible encounters and really a fantastic start of the season!

On our way back home to Húsavík we sailed passed Puffin island and came just as close to some of those 250.000 puffins nesting on this little isle in the summertime. Those cute “clowns of the ocean” were really all over - under, over and around us - bringing a lot of entertaining life into the bay.

It is a fantastic feeling to be back on the boat, meeting nature when it is at its best.

Lia Askelöf
Guide at Gentle Giants