Húsavík, Þórshöfn and Grímsey

A quick post to let you know what I've been doing for the past [however long it's been since I last blogged], because there's nothing like forgetting you were meant to write something and then filling it up with pictures to finish in a rush.

I spent Saturay and Sunday in Húsavík. I went on a 2 and a half hour whale watching trip on a RIB. We saw a humpback whale and a blue whale - and got a much better view of them than any of the other trips out on sailing boats at the same time because we could follow the whales more quickly. In the afternoon I went to Húsavík Whale Museum, where I learnt facts such as:

On Sunday, everything in Húsavík was closed apart from the ice cream shop. I had one of these:

On Monday I took the bus to Þórshöfn. I was intending to spend a couple of days walking and birdwatching. When I woke up on Tueday morning it looked like it was foggy outside - but this turned out to be a fine spray of sleet, whipped up by 20mph North winds. Later the sleet turned to hail, and going outside felt like being sandblasted. The birds (sensibly) were nowhere to be seen. 

Yesterday I visited Grímsey, a small island which is the only part of Iceland to cross the Arctic Circle. This is the 16-seater plane I went in: 

It could seat 16 people. The cockpit was open throughout the flight which meant spending half an hour each way having to repress the urge to ask the pilot what each of the switches and dials were for. Once on the island, I walked all the way up and down one side of the island. Away from the airport and town there were thousands of puffins on the cliffs, but they were so shy that they flew away before I could get very close. There were also hundreds of ground nesting arctic terns which divebombed me while screeching their alarm call. I also crossed the Arctic Circle at the special metal pole in the ground and got a certificate:

That was a bit strange, as if it only exists at one point on the island and doesn't in fact go all the way across it. And as the Arctic Circle is moving about 100m northward every year, their special metal pole was probably in the wrong place anyway. 

This afternoon I'm flying to Nuuk in Greenland. My phone deal doesn't apply there, but I assume the hostels will have wifi so hopefully I will continue to blog.