Woolly says – I was all at sea, Jo had point blank refused to tell me what todays activity was, the only think that I knew was that I needed my raincoat which alarmed me somewhat as due to my allergy to water that could only mean one thing.

As we left the hostel I tried prizing the information out of her once more, she grinned and muttered very quietly Wales. I stopped abruptly, wondering why if we were heading back home to Wales we weren’t carrying the big backpack and the human hadn’t checked her pockets twenty times for our passports. I scratched my trunk and raced to catch her up.

We entered the harbour area of Reykjavik, the old harbour is the heart of Reykjavík and is one of the reasons that city prospered from its trawling fleets, today it is the main centre of many of the cities museums. We stopped to admire some of the boats docked, craft of all kind were moored there from the small pleasure dinghy’s to the large coast guard vessel.

A row of huts seemed to grab my carers attention and as she disappeared into one I felt that at a loss, until my beady eye caught a number of signs for Whale watching trips, surely not, were we actually going to see a whale! As Jo reappeared, I stood my ground and demanded to know what was going on.

We were indeed going Whale watching, when booking the trip I had considered so many options that Iceland had to offer and this was something that I had never had the opportunity to do before and regardless of my furry friends aversion to water I thought he would enjoy it. Before our boat left however we had a museum to visit.

Woolly says – Well what a day this was going to be, before I could elicit further information she was off again, I trotted behind her for a further few minutes before I found myself stood in front of a sign that stated we had arrived at The Whales of Iceland exhibition. It appeared that the day was going to be all about Whales whether I liked it or not.

Walking into the warmth we shed our outer layers taking up a whole locker with the coats, hats and gloves before moving into the museum where the noise of whales reached my ears and a whole host of life size Whales and Dolphins greeted my eyes. Goodness me, they were much bigger than I had expected.

As we turned our audio guide on, I listened intently as the voice told us all about dolphins and porpoises and why they are different. Did you know that the Narwhale has over one hundred nerves in his unicorn type tusk? Or that a Norwegian whaler named Meincke, who mistook a northern minke whale for a blue whale and gave them his own name? It was fascinating.

We moved onto the Sperm Whale who sleeps less than any other mammal in the world, resting for a mere fifteen minutes and even better that they sleep facing upwards.

A number of cases showed us teeth and bones from a variety of the mammals on show.

Another section gave us even bigger whales, I’d never realised how many different types there were.

The biggest of the lot was the Blue Whale and this one nearly filled the whole exhibition on his own.

We found ourselves in a section which explained how plastic and nets were harming  whale life and that humans needed to stop being so careless with their rubbish.

Next door was a cinema with all things Whale and a few Dolphins for good measure, it was amazing to see the wonderous mammals in their own habitat.

The award-winning documentary Sonic Sea started and it was heart-breaking to watch. Detailing how humans and their thirst for fuel that required the use of industrial sonars was changing the world under the waves as the noise from them disturbed the hearing and meant that pods of them would lose each other and even worse end up on the shore where death was more than likely. Even worse was the noise made from shipping container ships with their massive noisy engines meant that the whale population was going completely off track and ending up in places where they were in danger. This was leading to some species getting close to extinction.

Having collected our outer layers we still felt somewhat subdued but with some time to spare and finding a warm and cosy café serving delicious cakes we cheered up and prepared to face the open sea.

Our ship was called Sailor and once everyone had boarded we were quickly underway, Jo had told me not to pin my hopes on seeing anything because it would depend on mother nature, I just hoped it would be better than the lights and we actually saw something.

Leaving the harbour we looked back towards the city as the wind picked up and I huddled into my carers jacket in an attempt to keep my extremities warm.

Forty minutes into the journey a cry went up, White Beaked Dolphins were on the starboard, every raced across the boat and we stood trying to capture pictures and admire the beautiful creatures leaping in and out of the sea.

The pod passed and we cruised on, it was freezing and rocky under paw, I held onto Jo and she in turn held onto the handrail keeping her camera handy.

Another cry from our guide, Hump Backed Whale to the port, as sea spray nearly blinded our vision we peered out and could see a huge spout of water coming out of the waves.

It was all quiet for a while when suddenly a fin appeared and the humpty back was back, a brief glimpse but it delighted us none the less.

More shouts and the population of the ship headed towards the area on the ship, we arrived just in time to see the tail slap into the water, how wonderful.

My human decided to change tactic and headed right to the bow, our eyes scanned the water and once again water spouted up and a fin briefly appeared.

We stood and waited and waited for more, little peeks arrived every now and then until the announcement came that we were turning and heading back to harbour, I looked around and realised that Jo and I were the only ones still outside on the deck and my carer looked as though she had frozen to the ship, with her teeth chattering I urged her down into the saloon and a warming cup of hot chocolate.

Sadly, despite my best attempts – over 200 pictures taken – I didn’t get any great shots, I’m not going to be taking up marine photography any time soon, if you look very very closely at the ones we have uploaded you can see a very small something. Usually I would be gutted at this but Woolly and I got to see these amazing creatures so were happy, you’ll just have to head to Iceland so you can to.