Exciting, loud and important. Our passengers on the 13:15 tour got to experience something very special today which was planned but not a part of our standard whale watching trip. The Icelandic coast guard together with the local rescue team had a safety drill on board our boat where a woman from the rescue team got winched up from the deck of Sylvía.
So, today we enter the month of August and even though no schedules change we can still look back at July and conclude: We do not remember a season as successful as the this one has been so far.The whales are many – still – and active.
Having a humpback whale checking out the boat is something really special and amazing to watch, but having a humpback doing that on all my three trips the other day was something unbelievable and indescribable for me.
Those days the summer is high in Húsavík. Loads of people wander the streets, enjoy the sun (which is shining bright and warm) and go whale watching. There is an annual festival going on over the weekend, called Mærudagar - Candy Days.
How close can you get to a whale...? Never in my five seasons by Gentle Giants have I experienced a humpback scratching its nose to the keel of our boat nor examining us so closely, calmly and for so long as this one did this morning.
We were waiting on board Amma Sigga for the humpback to blow once again. The sun shone, the sea was flat and all you could hear was the silence - but everything changed in a second. Suddenly the calm surface was pierced by the massive body of a humpback whale which shot itself up, twisted and landed on its side.
Want to catch your own meal? Even though whale watching is our biggest product we do offer many other tours as well. One of them is sea-angling. Two days ago Valdi Jón, Daniel and I went out on Skjálfandi Bay with ten passengers who were trying their luck with the rods.
This season we have been luckier with humpback whales than ever before. We do not remember them being so many nor so acrobatic as they have been and are those days. They have been jumping, flipper slapping and lob tailing on nearly every trip.
For whale watching big storms are not very good, but for team building they can be really useful.The other day when the weather was too rough to run whale watching we decided to use the time on a staff trip.
For people who really love whales we offer a muti-trip pass which means that you pay for one tour a day but can go on as many as you want and manage.Exactly that did Micha Jones from Germany; three days intense whale watching and those are his own words;"GG provides one of the best guided tours I‘ve ever been too! The location is just amazing (and the weather also was the last 3 days)! It was a great adventure to go out to the whales with Sylvía, Faldur and of course the incredible Amma Sigga! And don‘t forget the cool captains and the skilled and knowledge packed guides on all the beautiful tours! We found whales on every of my seven trips with GG and be sure: I‘ll be back! Best wishes and go on, Mischa Jones, Germany 10th July 2012" Mischa - one of our multi-trip passengers - happy after successful days on board our boats.
