We have sailed west, into the centre of Skjálfandi Bay. Everything around our ship – land, sea, sky – is some variation of grey, except for our full-length, cherry-red survival suits. My seasick fellow passengers haul themselves to the guardrail and peer stoically into the distance.
At first, the wildlife is limited to birds: gannets, Arctic terns, black guillemots with white patches on their wings. But we are not here for birds.
All of us – I hear Japanese, French, English, German, Scandinavian languages that I can’t distinguish from one another – are here for whales. The whales cannot be trusted to appear on cue, our North Sailing guide says. This is the North Atlantic, not SeaWorld.
And so we wait. I email my landlord, my boss and a woman…
