Thursday, June 26. Husavik
We went off at 8:15 am for a whale watching tour. Once ashore it was a 10 minute walk to a different part of the harbour to find our vessel and here we were kept waiting for 15 minutes or so in the light rain. Once the 80 of us were aboard this whale boat, we were provided with dry suits to keep us warm and then a southwesters which meant that we could hardly walk, we were so bulky. Several whales were sighted and people in general seemed contented with the tour.
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The problem we had was that our boat was deliberately manoeuvred to put the whales we saw on to the right hand side of our boat - in order to not get in the way of the other boats in the posse. But our boat was so overloaded with punters, that we could not get to that side of the boat. In the end David remonstrated with the feckless whale spotter, and they begrudgingly conceded to put the last few sightings onto our side of the boat. As Silversea had chartered the boat, then Silversea should have put fewer guests on the boat, and charter another boat to take all that wanted to go.
David got photos of whales, but did not feel that he had really seen them, although his telephoto lens had. It certainly was not a remake of Moby Dick
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We were back in port by noon and walked to the whale museum which must be one of the best museums of its kind in the world. Then a short walk around the town, including entering the scenic church, before a zodiac back to the ship where we were able to get lunch just before the restaurant closed.
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In the afternoon I went for a swim and a Jacuzzi before having a siesta. Then afternoon tea before Werner’s briefing which included the news that there was very bad weather awaiting us on our journey down to Orkney on the 29th and the plans might have to be changed.
There was a Venetian society welcome at 6:30 pm and we were the second most travelled passengers on the ship, the first couple have travelled about 650 nights on Silversea. Then we had dinner with the captain, Ulf– Peter and his surname was Hansen-Lindstroem and his wife, Emma, was the assistant expedition leader. There was five others on the table and it was quite an interesting conversation, mostly about the demise of Silversea.