A Day of Weather and Wildlife
We did this paddle with North Explorers as a standard offering from their catalog. I had signed up for it online before we arrived. Not knowing how far it was to drive to the Westfjords (a day), it is probably best that we had booked it, otherwise we may have never had the experience of the Westfjords. This was a day paddle that lasted until about 4pm and then we were invited into someone's home where we beached and they made us hot chocolate and we had cakes and chocolate and blueberries. It was nice to meet some Icelanders and be invited into their home, and we signed their guest book, so this probably happens a lot, but we still do not speak any Icelandic at all.
The trip was incredibly foggy, which was not typical of the other trips that had gone out during the season. For some reason we were on the tail of a hurricane and everything was different. The surf was higher in that there were waves that were breaking that had not been an issue before and there was a massive - I mean massive - school of jelly fish that I paddled over that was particularly amazing and creepy at the same time. The guide had never seen anything like it in his life. This was ten minutes into the trip and the best was yet to come.
This trip started in Seyðisfjörður and ended in Hestfjörður. It basically went around Hestur and ended up a little further down the road so one could run and get the car and bring it over to get the kayaks. It was nice being able to do this loop. I would like to say the scenery was great, but the fog hid the earth for most of the trip. Towards the end when the fog was lifting we were followed by a few seals and we also saw black Arctic Fox sitting near a pile of rocks towards the end. That was incredible!
It was a fantastic day overall. Even though I thought we went slow, we finished pretty early. A large group could have taken longer and we were still home in time for dinner - which we still ate even though we had cakes and cookies at the Icelander's home when we landed. It was a bit of a workout! We recommend this trip through North Explorers. It was called Two Fjords in their listings at the time we booked. To see the Westfjords from the fjord itself was something that could not be surpassed.