From our apartment, it is only a couple of minutes to the pier where you can catch a boat for whalewatching. However, having read TripAdvisor, the main moan is that it takes too long to get to the point in the estuary where you can mostlikely see whales and too little time is spent with the whales. So we opted to buy a trip from Hauganes, about 30 minutes drive north where they boast it takes 18 minutes to get to the whales. It was cheaper than the boats from Akureyri and if you booked on line you got 10% discount on the £75 per person price.

We drove up the fjord, stopping to photograph one of Iceland's white and red churches. We arrived about 1 pm and had a picnic overlooking the port - not bad when you are only just south of the Artic Circle.

Before getting on board, we had to don floatation suits - but we hoped we wouldn't need them. The small wooden boat was spacious with plenty of room. Most people went to the front but we had read the web site which said the best views were from the side. Heading out into Hauganes Sound, our first humpback was seen in the distance. There was a lot of clicking of cameras - ourselves included. Soon we realised we were with a group of three swimming together. There is a pattern to their behaviour which means first you see them blowing water, then they come up four or five times, and then dive deep. This is when you see the tail rise out of the water. Then there is 4-5 minute gap and the pattern is repeated. Once you learned this pattern you could take better photos. But sometimes it was good to put down the camera and just enjoy these magnificant creatures. At one point they dived under our boat and at other times you could almost touch them.

In all we spent about 90 minutes in their company and also saw a lone Minke whale in the distance. (We noticed the rib boat from Akureyri stayed about 30 minutes.) Amazing.

Sadly we had to return to shore. Back at our room, we were shattered and edited out over one hundred dodgy pictures for the blog. Exhausted but very happy, we had some pasta (again) as we were too sleepy to cook. Another very special day!