If I were a whale, I’d swim away, fast, from any boat sporting the Icelandic flag. Iceland’s decision to resume whaling last year scandalized right-thinking mammals everywhere and flummoxed the tourist industry, which had just started to earn a decent wedge from harpoon-free cetacean-chasing. 

But then I’m not a minke whale. These small baleen fellows, common in Icelandic waters, are notoriously curious. Stupidly curious. Which was a boon for earlier generations of whale hunters --  the young minkes would swim right up to the boat and all but administer the mortal blow themselves. They haven’t gotten the message about the end of the whaling embargo, so they’re still popping up to delight boatloads of visitors.

Except us...



We’d been at sea for two and a half hours, and seen only distant glimpses of fins that promptly disappeared as the boat roared towards them.

The boys were doing well, though -- managing much better than the family of four that lay prostrate and miserable on the deck, victims of a ghastly combination of jetlag and seasickness. 

For safety reasons, all children on board had to wear what Ásdis, our guide, called “wests.” James saw this as a great honour. He strode about the deck occasionally checking the strap between his legs, the crucial part of the whole assemblage: without that, he reminded us, if he fell in the water, the west would float up and off and he would sink into the briny deep. Call him Ishmael, Jr.

Toby took exception to the west. He preferred the prospect of sleeping with the fishes to wearing a lifejacket, even one with stars on it. After a failed Houdini-like escape, he roared, then fell asleep in his father’s arms.

Whale-watching is a curious pastime. It’s sort of like bird-watching crossed with cow-tipping, but not quite so hands-on.  You’re stalking animals the size of a bus, in order to – what? Photograph them, if you’re quick on the draw, but then you’re not really seeing them if you’re fumbling with a camera, so why bother?

Some years ago, I’d gone whale-watching off the South Island of New Zealand, in a small inflatable boat with an outboard motor. Out there, the local whales are mostly teenaged male sperm whales who’ve been exiled from the pod to get their testosterone yayas out. They spend their days tooling around in coastal waters, hunting for food and playing chicken with each other. We had spotted three or four big specimens floating on the surface; as we approached them, they would spout and then dive under with a dramatically slow flick of their giant flukes, flipping the bird but making for an excellent photo opportunity. For anything livelier, you had to cross your fingers for dolphins, who are the unpaid Cirque du Soleil of the sea world.

But these Icelandic guys were stealthy. All we saw was other whale-watching boats. As we scanned the waves of Faxaflói Bay looking for minkes and coming up empty, one tourist joked to his friend, “Makes you kind of miss Puffin Island, huh?”

Puffin Island had been our first stop. It was, as promised, hopping with the perky little birds (which are also on the menu at many an Icelandic restaurant). Thousands more flickered erratically above and around the boat like cheerful, portly bats. James was chuffed to see one of his favourite cereals come to life, while I was impressed by the helpful puffin facts dispensed by our guide.

Each parent bird takes turns guarding their single, solitary puffling, while the other parent heads out to sea to collect sand-eels, the skinny fish that are their preferred treat (check it out). Apparently puffins’ beaks have handy hooks inside for holding onto the fish; the record number of sand-eels ferried on one trip by a single puffin was sixty-two. Having spent a week pushing a stroller all over Reykjavík with swimming gear, changes of clothes, snacks, drinks, and occasionally a crash-helmet and folded-up scooter looped over its handles, I felt a wave of fellow-feeling.

I was missing Puffin Island. But still, it’s exhilarating to be out on the ocean, the freezing salty wind slapping you awake. The steep escarpments of the Snaefellsnes peninsula were patchworked with sharp-edged shadows by the clouds scudding overhead. Richard sat in a sheltered corner holding a sleeping Toby, and James got his sea-legs by making repeat trips down the steep ladder into the hold to buy muffins. He and I also spent a lot of time at the front of the boat enjoying what he called the “natural rollercoaster” as we crossed the swells; and hanging out at the back of the boat admiring the wake.


Still no whales, and the trip was nearly over. Toby woke up, still disgruntled by the life vest but keen to nurse. I wandered the deck at the back of the boat with him in my arms, our only company a handful of elderly passengers who had been glued to their seats for the whole trip. Everyone else had answered the call “Twelve o’clock! Twelve o’clock,” and rushed up to the bows to squint at the latest potential sighting.

Suddenly, a little way off the back of the boat, two minkes appeared. They raced along, side by side, carving through the water in graceful arcs and then disappearing. Our little gang smiled at each other in delight. None of us thought to holler “Six o’clock!”  We were too busy enjoying the sight.

Toby and I wandered up to tell the others about our brief good fortune. Just as I was stepping gingerly over the seasick family, a movement in the ocean caught my eye. Something black and grey rolled over in the waves, perhaps a hundred feet from the boat. As I gasped and pointed it out to Toby, a giant whale reared up -- and then suddenly leapt clear out of the water.

There is nothing quite like seeing an animal the size of a station-wagon defying gravity so blatantly. As Ásdis the guide whooped from her perch on top of the boat, “Nine o’clock! Oh my god!”, the whale – a large minke -- jumped again.

“Minkes never do this!” Ásdis spluttered. “We never see them jump so close!” And then as everyone on the boat watched, the whale hurled itself out of the water a definitive third time.

Then it was gone.

Before the leaping behemoth, I’d been getting all philosophical about how, quite by accident, the grannies and the nursing mother had most likely seen the best whales of the day, while the eager paparazzi crowd at the front of the boat waited in vain.

Perhaps it’s not about what you look for, I'd been musing, it’s about what you see... and then at the last minute, we’d all seen it. In the wake of the encounter we were exultant, grinning ear to ear.

It had seemed absolutely beside the point to reach for a camera. The next day James drew a picture that showed the minke’s grooved throat markings in great detail, as it burst out of a rainbow-coloured sea -- a more evocative record than any blurry snap we might have managed in the excitement of the moment.