Whale Watching from Dalvik, Siglufjördur, Tröllaskagi, Laugarbakki - September 3, 2023

Mother and daughter whale watching

Situated in the north of Iceland, Akureyri is at the bottom of Eyjafjördur, the longest fjord in the country. In the morning, we travelled along this fjord until we arrived at the small fishing village of Dalvik. Here we were taken to a building where we were outfitted in floatable suits for our maritime adventure. We were going whale watching.

Boat on Eyjafjördur

Ready in our Norwegian Firefighters suits.

For Jess and me, whale watching was not new. We had done this on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America, but always on a warm summer's day. Here, in the far north of Iceland, just short of the Arctic circle, we had layered our own clothes when we dressed in the morning and then covered them with a brilliant red "Norwegian Firefighters" suit. We were ready for a few hours on the water. 

Our boat looked like this one

Group in a speedboat

We embarked on an Arctic Sea Tours vessel, which had room enough for us and another group of similar size. Another group of tourists had opted for the speedboat tour, on a much small craft. They may have been able to get closer to the animal life, but they would not have had the higher perspective that we enjoyed.

Eva, the instructor

Eva, the watcher

Our guide on this excursion was Eva, who like Ola, our glacier hiking guide, was from Poland. As we headed out into the fjord, she instructed us on the marine mammals and fish we might encounter on our tour. Later, she took a position on the highest part of the ship to watch for whales.  

The view

Another view

During our excursion, since we were inside a fjord, we were always within sight of the shore. As a result, we had some lovely views of the landscape and the frigid waters. This was welcome as, to be honest, there was a lot of downtime on this tour. The whales were a little shy.

Jess, Michelle and Tiffany on the upper deck

Some of us watching on the main deck

Our group gathered on two levels. Jess chose to watch from the upper deck at the front of the boat with Tiffany, Michelle, Pamela and others, while I stayed on the main deck with Cyndy, Cathy, Tina, Robin and others. 

I am in the grey tuque.

Close-up

I was lucky enough to find a place to sit as I waited. Tina and Cyndy joined me on the bench, and even when we moved to see if there was a marine mammal near by, we were always able to return to our spots. 

Andrew and Robin

Pamela and Michelle

We passed the time taking photos of each other resplendent in our red suits. I captured a good one of Robin and Andrew, while the younger crowd above us replicated a famous scene from the Titanic, starring Pamela as Jack, and Michelle as Rose. 

The blow

The back

The tail

Happily, we did see some humpback whales. One of them appeared twice. We would first spot the "blow"; then the beast would show his back with its prominent dorsal fin, as it dove into the water, and finally, its tail would appear and slowly disappear as it headed deeper. The photos above are of three different sightings. 

We saw this fellow twice

We saw this fellow only once

By the markings on its fluke, we were able to determine if the whale we were seeing was one we had already seen, or a new one  The fluke with more white on it was seen twice; the other one, only once. You need a steady hand to photograph whales through a zoom lens, so I passed my camera to Jess for these shots. I was more successful at capturing the mountains of Tröllaskagi in the distance.

Snow capped mountain

Mountain and whale

As our boat headed to shore, Eva treated us all to some hot chocolate and a biscuit, or two if we wished. That was a pleasant way to end this trip. Whale watching took us the entire morning, so after we arrived back in Dalvik and returned our suits, we were ready for lunch.

Jess enjoying her hot chocolate

Delectable fish soup

Soly chose a restaurant very close to where we were outfitted for our whale watching expedition, a café with rustic charm. The menu was limited to two kinds of soup: fish or vegetarian, accompanied by three kinds of homemade bread and a green salad. This was my kind of meal. I absolutely loved the fish soup, so much so that I returned for seconds. (I would love the recipe, Soly.)

Soup counter

The restaurant itself is more a coffee and dessert establishment than a lunch place. It is decorated in Higge style, a Scandinavian way of life that prioritizes simplicity and comfort. It was quirky place too. In a room near the bathrooms, there was a full sized representation of the former Icelandic Prime Minister standing beside a piano. Further afield, there was a small theatre. 

Sated, we returned to the bus and headed towards our next destination, Siglufjördur. As we approached the village, I was able to take a few pictures of the entrance to the harbour. Once a major fishing centre for herring, the village is known today as the setting of the Nordic Noir series, Trapped, which I watched it its entirety before I left for Iceland. Its isolated location in the far north of the country factored heavily into the story line. The harbour area was often featured so I looked for familiar scenes.

The original plan was to have our lunch here, but the restaurant we were going to visit was closed on Sundays, so we spent a very short time here taking pictures. It provided a very pretty backdrop with its large buildings painted in primary colours, and metal sculptures. Kristian took a very good photo of an old ship, which I have included here as well. 

A few minutes later, Soly made a brief stop at what he described as the most northerly point in the country, where a small representation of our group alighted for photos. They did not stay outside long because the persistent Icelandic wind was up. I have included a photo of their shadows and the little orange lighthouse in the distance. 

The rest of the day was taken up with travel, the longest leg of our journey. We had no particular attractions to see for the next two and half hours. It was a good thing that we had time to relax because we had a busy evening ahead of us. 

At about 6:00 o'clock, we arrived at the Hotel Laugarbakki where we would be spending the night. It is a fairly large place, quite modern, in the middle of nowhere. Soly had booked us a large table in the dining room, where we had our last evening meal as a group of 18. 

This was a terrific evening. The food was really good (though not as good as that fish soup) and the mood was festive. We had had a great time travelling with each other and we wanted to make the evening last as long as possible You can see on our faces how happy we were to be together. 

After dinner, the party continued. At the bar, Jess and Jaycee played a duet of "Heart and Soul", while even later, several of the group gathered for some refreshments in one of the rooms. The party was interrupted at about 10:30 by a text from Soly. 

I was on a FaceTime call with my husband when Jess hurried to the room to tell me the news. This was what we had been waiting for!! I quickly got dressed and headed outside where I joined some of the others–and Soly. What turned out to be the Northern Lights was what appeared to be a grey band across the sky. However, when I looked at this grey band through my iPhone camera, it was green! 

Without Soly's help, we would not have realized what we were seeing. Over the next half hour, he organized us as we posed individually for photos. We used one cell phone as a flashlight, then just as the light was extinguished, Soly took the photo with a second cell phone. Here we are, in all our bliss: Robin, Pamela, Jess, me, Cathy and Lloyd, and Rosanna. 

It was quite cold that night, but we did not want to go inside. The lights got brighter and covered more of the sky as we watched them. So cool. We posed one more time as a group before, reluctantly, we returned to our rooms. 

Later, after I was asleep, some of the partiers came outside again for some more photos. Kristian, Pamela, Michelle, Jaycee and Paul are in these shots. For us, this was a bonus on our trip. We knew there was a chance to see the Northern Lights, but we were also aware that we needed ideal conditions to do so. On our final night together, the weather gods were good to us.