Sometimes you spot fireworks - other times you spot whales

July 3 and 4, 2023


 Actually, we enjoyed a great fireworks show back in our hometown in New Jersey on Saturday, July 1, on the eve of our flight to Iceland to catch our cruise ship. Having arrived in Reykjavik on July 3 we had plenty of time for our first shore-excursion; whale-watching off the bay of Reykjavik. I snapped the photo below of the Harpa Concert Hall as we headed out, but my husband got a terrific photo of the interior...




Here's my husband's photo of the inside of Harpa. (Dang! I should have gotten one myself, but it slipped my mind while I was admiring the way the light plays through these colorful windows whose shapes are inspired by the basalt columns that make up so much of Iceland's geology...)


The Harpa (Its name is inspired by the musical instrument NOT the harpoon!) overlooks

Faxaflói Bay, where we set out for our four-hour whale-watching excursion on a little motorboat that seated maybe 100 people.  You can find out a lot more about the Harpa's architecture; the history behind its opening in 2011; and its schedule of concerts, theatrical events, and conferences at https://www.harpa.is/en.


Whale-watching was a blast!  I again have to turn to some of James' photos to show the actual tails and fins of the whales we spotted - I was just proud of myself for having seaworthy enough legs to not fall on the deck on this rough ride!  Here's me with the wind in my hair as I'm holding onto something at all times while on this whale-watching excursion.


Can you see the whale-tail near the boat (which is marked "Whale Watching")?  Since this photo is by someone else (my husband) I had to spend time figuring out how to get it into one of my own Google albums so that I could put it onto my blog.  I'm also a beginner at blogging with photos, so I haven't been able to crop this photo as much as I would like so that I can zero in on the tail and on the writing on the other whale-watching boat.  

The next day was July 4th, and we spent it on another shore-excursion "Panoramic views of Reykjavík" which included a visit to the Whales of Iceland museum (www.whalesoficeland.is
).  There we learned that whales are attracted to the boats because the boats stir up krill and other sea nutrients vital to the whales' diets. 

Now that things were a little more stationary, I was able to take my own photos (celebrating my independence as a photographer on Independence Day, what serendipity)!



The first of these two photos is a model of a Narwhal.  One Nat Geo (National Geographic) Wild YouTube video calls narwhals "The Unicorns of the Sea" and informs us that this "horn" is actually a tusk. The video, which is less than three minutes describes the mysteries and legends surrounding these sea creatures and their unique tusks.  

The second photo is that of a Sperm Whale model.  I thought his open mouth reminded me of the walkway back onto our cruise ship - it practically beckons "welcome aboard" to all the krill and other sea creatures that will soon swim into his open mouth.  (By the way, if you want to find out the varied diet of the sperm whale look up www.icrwhale.org (Institute of Cetacean Research in Japan.  Actually, I simply Googled "What do sperm whale eat?" and got this result.  I think it's an unusually good Google result since I usually run into either Wikipedia or into sites trying to sell me things I'm not interested in when I search Google.)  Of course if you prefer a good story about a sperm whale there's always "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville.

The poster in the final photo for this blog-entry gives some sense of the many types of whales that spend the warmer months in here in the northern part of the North Atlantic.









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