Whale watching from Reykjavik: the three-hour cruise, honestly described

Most whale watching in the world involves going to meet animals that are passing through. Reykjavík is different, and the difference is the reason a city harbour can sell this trip at all.

Faxaflói is a wide, shallow bay between two peninsulas, fed by cold currents and full of sandeel, capelin and krill through the summer. Minke whales, humpbacks and dolphins come into it to eat, and they stay while the food does. That is why a boat can leave a quay in the middle of a capital city, sail for twenty minutes, and reasonably expect to find a whale.

It also explains the shape of the season. Sighting rates climb from April as the water warms and the fish arrive, peak through June, July and August, and fall away through the autumn. Trips run all winter and still find animals — but the odds change, and the weather cancels more days.

One consequence worth knowing: the crew find whales by watching birds. Gannets diving and rafts of kittiwakes sitting on the water mark the fish, and the fish mark the whales. If you want to see the first blow before anybody announces it, watch where the birds are working.

Minke whale. The commonest animal in the bay. Eight to nine metres, dark grey with a pale band on the flipper, and undramatic: a curved back rolling through the surface and a low bushy blow that is easy to miss in wind. They are curious, and they will sometimes come to the boat.

White-beaked dolphin. The most reliable sighting outside high summer. They travel in groups of five to twenty, move fast, and will occasionally ride the bow wave, which is the moment everybody remembers.

Humpback whale. Bigger, slower and far more visible: a tall blow, a long back, and the fluke lifted clear of the water before a deep dive. More frequent in late summer, and the animal most likely to breach.

Harbour porpoise. Small, shy and easy to miss — a dark triangle that shows for half a second and is gone.

Orca. A few times a season, usually further out, and always luck. No operator sells a trip on the promise of them, and any that did would be lying.

What none of this looks like is the photograph on the listing. A breaching humpback is a real thing that happens and it is not the typical sighting. The typical sighting is a back and a blow two hundred metres away, and it is better than it sounds when the guide is telling you what you are looking at.

Check in at the hut on the quay half an hour before departure — the harbour is busy in summer and the pontoon is narrow. Overalls are handed out as you board; put yours on before you step onto a moving deck rather than after.

The first ten minutes are the harbour itself: the fishing fleet, the slipways, Harpa glittering on the waterfront, and then the open bay with Esja standing behind the city. Look back at this point. It is the only angle from which Reykjavík looks like what it is, a small city under a big mountain.

Twenty minutes out the engine settles and the crew start scanning. Most sightings happen between forty minutes and two hours in, and the boat works the bay rather than running a fixed route — following birds, following other boats’ radio calls, following a blow somebody saw two minutes ago.

The last half hour is the run home with hot chocolate below decks, and on a clear day Snæfellsjökull on the northern horizon a hundred kilometres away. You are back on the same pontoon three hours after you left, in the middle of the city, with the rest of the day intact.