A whale watching Mecca

Posted by brianfit at 12:40 PM, June 26, 2004

Our day started out with a dream come true. We saw, spouting magnificently 5 meters into the air, the largest creature which has ever lived on Earth: the Blue Whale. Blues were hunted so aggressively, and their habits are so elusive, that they are very seldom seen.

-- Brian

When Icelandic whaling comes to an end, and you're heading to Iceland on a vacation to say "thank you," DO NOT MISS the beautiful town of Húsavík, far up on the North coast just 20 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Our day started out with a dream come true. We saw, spouting water vapor 5 meters into the air, the largest creature which has ever lived on Earth: the Blue Whale. Blues were hunted so aggressively, and their habits are so elusive, that they are almost never seen. They were last spotted in these waters 7 years ago. But among us, over two trips, we blessedly lucky Greenpeacers saw from four to seven animals. Our cook, Rien Achtenburg, actually had eye contact with one Blue. And best of all, one of them showed her fluke to us - behaviour which some marine biologists believe indicates a pregnant female's different diving style.

I could write gigabytes about how this felt, but suffice it to say it was mystical, magical, magnificent. I called my five year old son last night to tell him I'd seen an animal bigger than a dinosaur.

"Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww."

"His tongue is as big as a car"

"Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Daddy, can I come to Iceland too?"

I will definitely return here when Iceland stops whaling, with young Doon. At this time of year, the sun shines all night. You can hop a boat out to the whales' feeding grounds with the midnight sun glinting bright red off the snow-capped mountains that march straight down to the sea. You can sit in a hot springs on the coast under vapor rainbows and watch for spouts. If the humpbacks are about, you can even see breaching whales from the high hilltop. You can visit the whale museum of Asbjorn Bjorgvinsson, a dedicated activist against his country's whaling programme, who donated our whale watching trips out of respect for our pledge and made us so welcome here.

Asbjörn (Abbi to his friends - and anyone who is helping stop Icelandic whaling is Abbi's friend) set up a little symposium yesterday with folks from IFAW, the Icelandic president of the Parliament, and ourselves. Frode explained our campaign, I filled folks in on the pledge and read some of the comments that some of you have made at the pledge site and here in the cybercentre, to try to convey just how badly folks want to visit this great place, but how serious we all are that this won't happen until whaling is ended completely. One comment in particular was so spot on, from one of our Canadian cyberactivists: "Please give me an excuse to experience a soak in the thermal springs of Iceland after a day of whale-watching. I won't visit Iceland until the government stops killing whales." I introduced Marnee as our top recruiter, who had generated more than US$ 250,000 in potential income from folks who would love to visit Húsavík, and who will visit Husavik if whaling ends.

Marnee did a great job, (as always!) telling folks that she had 250 friends who didn't believe that whaling and whale watching belonged together, and that while some Icelanders may believe that hunting whales is compatible with a love of nature, few of the people they want to attract here would agree.

In the afternoon, we joined local kids, visitors, and the staff of the whaling museum in building a sand whale with shovels, buckets, and the local firetruck, which provided a fire hose to wet the sand. This species, previously undescribed in the literature, is so rare it has been spotted only once on the black volcanic beach of Husavik. Ballenas Sabbias has a slightly pointed dorsal fin which is EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE, fins which taper splendidly thanks to the art direction and craftsmanlike shovelling of a few modest Greenpeace folks who would never want their names mentioned here if they're anything like Marnee Benson of Reno Nevada or Iréne Berg of I'm-not-actually-Swedish, Sweden.

Ballenas Sabbias has a fluke which begins like a humpback's and finishes like a fin whale, and which dissolves if you hit it too hard with a fire hose. Ballenas Sabbias consumes a great deal of time, sand, seawater, and sweat.

Ballenas Sabbias was supposed to have been a project of the local kids, but at one point I looked around and the kids were all having Zodiac rides and the sand whale was being constructed almost entirely by a team of adult five-year olds in Greenpeace gear. One of those five year olds got me with a fire hose. See if he gets to play with any of my toys for the rest of this trip.

This perfect day ended with a traditional midsummer's celebration party at the whale museum and a late night soak in the hot springs.

This is the place, folks. If the Icelandic whale pledge has a Mecca, this is the direction in which all of us should turn when we pray to God, Allah or Gaia that Iceland stops killing these magnificent creatures, so that we can all come up here next midsummers to enjoy this magical place together.

But until then, along with that prayer, send a message to the Prime Minister of Iceland. Tell him to hurry up.

--- Brian