Búðará

It was a brisk 6°C this morning as we headed to the little seaside town of Husevik. We are told there have been 3 days in the last 5 weeks without rain and, though cold, we are fortunate that today is one of those! With breath steaming and rugged up in jackets, scarves and gloves, we then kitted-up into weather-proof cover-alls to brave a journey out onto the Greenland Sea (just south of the Arctic Ocean and jusy shy of the Arctic Circle) in search of humpback whales. We were two of twelve in a rubber dinghy known as an RIB - a rigid inflatable boat. We felt like telly tubbies!
Taking off at 42 knots, we made our way to Puffin Island, full of thousands of breeding pairs of these little cuties. Puffins are actually sea birds, living 7 months of the year at sea and living in burrows for the 5 months of their summer breeding season. Their burrows are an S shape with two chambers; a bedroom (where they sleep, lay their one egg per year and start the raising of their chick) and a bathroom! They never poop on the outside of the burrows … very respectable and clean are they.
Then we were off in search of humpbacks in the Skjálfandi Bay. We weren't disappointed!!! There were easily 9 or more whale feeding and diving within a fairly limited distance. They steadily went about filling their belies without any fuss and were not bothered by the close distance of our boat. In Iceland, there are no real rules about keeping a respectful distance from marine life but they try to keep 15 to 50m away. We were very close!! This is the feeding season for humpback here. They will travel south for the northern winter to frolick and breed. The humpbacks in Aus seem to be more playful when we spot them off the east coast but then we see them when they are heading north to breed and they breach often to show off to the ladies. Fun fact: every humpback whale has a different pattern to the white of their tail (their fluke), similar to our fingerprints. Our captain and guide could name the whales we saw today, including Yoda, Grogu and Pikachu, all named because their fluke patterns looked similar to their namesakes. It was a very satisfying morning.
We headed back around the road known as the Diamond Circle to catch a couple of other Geological marvels this afternoon. We huffed and puffed (and froze) our way up the steep incline of an 80-180m crater known as Hverfjall (pronounced K-where-faati - go figure!). We took the short 80m walk straight up to see this enormous tuff ring, a type of explosive crater formed around 2500 years ago. I was impressed. Samara thought it looked like someone had shovelled a whole lot of black sand to make a giant hole.
We also shivered our way around the very pretty mounds of Skútustaðir, a series of pseudo craters, formed when lava flowed over the early marshland, trapping the water below it. The water then turned to steam which escaped through vents, exploding and fragmenting the lava around them, forming little craters. Today, they border Lake Myvatn, are covered in grass and wildflowers and ponies and sheep range beside them. On a clear blue day, they would be a marvelous sight.
And ... totally NOT as an afterthought ... happy, happy birthday to our boys Brayden and Jake, coincidently born on the same day! Hope your day was as awesome ours 😘Read more