Honeymoon in Iceland – Day 10: Whale watching in the Atlantic

Long story short of our Iceland Honeymoon day 10: And we woke up again with the sun in our face! We had a great start and our plan for the day involved a whale watching tour, visiting the lighthouse in Akranes and later in the evening to find a place to catch some shut eye close to the hiking path to Glymur.

Our day on Google Maps

We took road 50 back to Borgarnes and after followed the Ring Road 1 to Reykjavík for the whale watching tour. We returned in the direction of Akranes on the Ring Road 1, road 51 and ended the day close to Glymur after driving on road 47.

• Useful: all the whale watching tours that start from Reykjavik are located in the Old Harbor. If you arrive with your car, you can park it in the big parking spot in front of the harbor. We paid 5 € for 5 hours.

Whale Watching

We were positive that we could find whale watching tours in Borgarnes and as such we went straight to a touristic info point in a local supermarket to check out more details. Unfortunately for us we found out that there are none in the area and the closest companies that organize them are located in Reykjavik or Ólafsvík. We chose Reykjavik  because it was closer and because we were assured they would head out in the open.

In Reykjavik, we found two companies that operate tours but because the prices were the same and the only obvious difference was the logo on the ships we chose to go with Special Tours for the price of 9000 ISK per person.

The tour takes place on boats with a capacity of 80-150 people and it takes roughly 2.5 – 3 hours, the chances to see whales or dolphins is estimated at 95%, or so they advertise. If you want more adrenaline and to get closer to these majestic creatures you’ll have to spend more money for an express tour that takes place on a speedboat of 15-20 people.

On the same note, depending on the season, you can also opt in for puffin tours or night – Aurora tours.

So we have embarked on the ship and off to the “hunt” – of course, we were bursting with enthusiasm and excitement at the thought we would meet the humble giants. We sailed for 20 minutes until we reached the open waters at which point we started to slow down and to keep our eyes open on the water mass around.

It didn’t take long until we heard an announcement: look at 12 o’clock! I managed to see the curved spine of the first whale I’ve noticed in my life – a Minke whale. This species is about 7 to 11 meters long and it has a weight of up to 10 tons. This was followed by many other sightings and many photo bursts of the camera that had us high on our feet, moving from one side of the ship to the other.

After the first whale decided to take a break from us and to hide in the depths we spotted another two. Soon after we saw in the distance some other curious and playful creatures:  two families of white-beaked dolphins that were jumping over the cold waves of the Atlantic.

The dolphins were not at all shy as they started swimming side by side or beneath of the ship and they made the encounter quite emotional for me, but I presume also for the rest of passengers. I simply remained still, watching, admiring, forgetting even to immortalize the moment on the camera… I only remembered when it was somewhat too late. I’m extremely glad we chose to go on this tour!

On our way back, we returned in the cabin for a little bit of warmth and more interesting facts about whales. Not only that our guide shared great info with us about the whales but he also gave us precious experience: we were allowed to hold one big whale vertebrae and a piece of whalebone – that brush the whale has instead of front teeth that helps eliminate the water during feeding. Amazing creatures!

Akranes lighthouse

After the whale watching tour, we headed in the direction if Akranes where we wanted to visit the somewhat famous lighthouse of the town and we were hoping to find a sleeping spot close to it – the forecast for the night was clear skies and we were hoping to catch the Aurora.

There was a horrific stench close to the lighthouse and we abandoned all plans to sleep, see the Aurora or even to properly photograph the thing. I was under the impression that half of the ocean’s fish died there but on a later occasion we found out that the strong smell was coming from the process of drying fish (or that is what hope). In any case, we left in a hurry from Akranes and we didn’t even look back.

We spent the night right before the sign that read “Camping Prohibited” at the starting area of the hiking track to Glymur – a wonderful waterfall we planned for the next day and that would take us approximately 4 hours in total.

Hope you found the information helpful and accurate, but remember, if you have any questions drop them in a comment below!

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