It’s oh so quiet: silent whale watching on Iceland’s first electric boat tour
A carbon-neutral tour off Húsavík, in north Iceland, makes for a greener, more peaceful experience for visitors and sea creatures, says Phoebe Smith from The Guardian.
‘Look! Look! Over there …” The boat listed dramatically as 50 passengers raced to its starboard side.
Seconds earlier someone had spied the distinct blow – a spray of airborne water – that signalled a whale was about to emerge. A silence fell over the crowd as we waited, patiently.
“Port side. Quick,” called the spotter from the crow’s nest and everyone shuffled to the opposite rail. A shiny black fin rose from the water, while two flashes of white – its pectoral fins – could be made out beneath the surface.
“Watch for the tail,” came the cry, and the crowd gasped as the humpback revealed its fluke, dripping with water, before diving back into the waters of mountain-edged Skjálfandi bay.
It’s the kind of scene I’ve been lucky enough to witness many times when watching whales around the world: the silence of anticipation, followed by the cheer of the sighting. Then – after the encounter – the enthusiastic chatter and cries of otherwise level-headed strangers suddenly hugging each other with joy. All of this against the noise of rumbling and roaring diesel engines.
This particular encounter, off the northcoast of Iceland, was different. This time the whoops of delight and exhilaration were the only sound. We were on a silent, electric boat – a kind designed especially for whale-watching here in Húsavík.
It’s the brainchild of North Sailing, the company that, in 1995, pioneered whale-watching in Iceland […]. This move made the town the “whale capital of Iceland” – and the firm since determined to find a carbon-neutral way of getting up close to the whales. […].
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The now-electric [sailing boat] Opal set sail [five years ago], and another boat has since been added. […]. Both craft are charged from the 100% renewable hydro and geothermal energy that powers most of Iceland.
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I noticed a gentle calmness on the waves. And, without the racket of an engine to shout over, people seemed to speak in muted tones.
Even the ship’s captain, Cristian, loved the new arrangement: “After a day on this boat I come back to shore and I have no headache,” he said as we sat, peacefully, in the wheelhouse scanning the water for signs of one of the 23 species often spotted here. The most common are humpback, minke, white-beaked dolphin, sei and harbour porpoise – all of which I saw – with blue whale, orca, pilot whale and sperm whale spotted less frequently.
Over three days, I went out on [both sailing boats] on several occasions, inspired to take it slow, and linger in one place. But it’s not just passengers and crew who benefit from an electric engine. Several scientific studies suggest, unsurprisingly, that whales exhibit less signs of stress in quieter waters.
“I’ve seen the whales come much closer and stay for longer,” said Roderick, a boat-builder-cum-whalewatch-guide with North Sailing, who came to Húsavík several years ago from Switzerland and never left. I headed out with him on the second day of my visit. We were joined for about a mile by a curious minke whale, a school of dolphins danced in front of the bow and, in addition to one humpback lingering under and beside our vessel for an hour, we also sighted a pod of five.
“You really hear the whales when they come up and breathe. It’s so calming, and I think it makes people have a more meaningful connection to them. It’s even changed locals’ opinions on whales now they’ve seen the tourists come in,” said Roderick.
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“You have, on average, about 300,000 people arriving in Húsavík to see the whales each year – that’s nearly the same as the population of Iceland,” said Tom Grove, a volunteer at the town’s Whale Museum, who is also studying the impact of whale-watching on sea life at university. “As watching has increased there has been a decrease in support for whaling locally.”
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On my last morning, I went back out to see the whales. There, amid the high-speed inflatables and diesel-powered vessels, I noted that the whales seemed to linger longer alongside ours. But although North Sailing has offered competitors blueprints so they can make their vessels carbon neutral, too – choosing benefit to whales and the environment rather than profit margins – no other operator has taken that step so far.
Before we headed back to land, a humpback performed a breach – leaping skyward from the water – shocking us all into an even more pronounced silence. A suitably quiet end to the most memorable of trips.
This is an excerpt from an article originally written by Phoebe Smith and published by The Guardian.
