Greenpeace UK oceans campaigner, Willie Mackenzie, joined our flagship, the Rainbow Warrior on its Icelandic tour. The Warrior circumnavigated the nation, stopping in various cities and ports where the crew invited locals on board and opened up a dialogue about our opposition to whaling.
Below, Willie shares some of the highlights and low points of his trip.
Hvalfjordur: A visit to a whaling station
'Whale fjord' is the literal translation of Hvalfjordur, on the west coast north of Reykyajik. Apparently some 17 species of whales, dolphins and porpoises are found here.
We visited a bleak, forbidding location on a wet, cold, windy day, and what we found was quite different - Midsandur Whaling Station. An ex-whaler, John Burton, was with us and he described vividly how and where the whale would be processed once it had been towed up the slipway from the fjord. By his estimates the station was big enough to process Fin whales, the second biggest mammal that has ever lived.
The whole place was eerie. Almost Marie Celeste-like in appearance - all the equipment was run down and rusty, everything was covered in peeling paint. But it still seemed like the place had just been abandoned before we got there. John thought it probably had been looked after in the intervening years.
There were boots and jackets hung up on the lockers, and harpoons propped against the wall in the metal workshop. There were even flat packed cardboard boxes which said 'frozen whale meat' in English above some Japanese lettering.
This station was used to process the whales the last time Iceland did 'scientific whaling' in the late 1980s. Fin and Sei whales were processed into pet food, animal feed, oil and meat - over half of which was shipped to Japan.
A quite distressing place - but one I'm glad to have experienced.
Reykjavik: The capital city
After we circumnavigated Iceland, the Rainbow Warrior docked in Reykjavik once again. I suppose we have seen Iceland in a way that few others have.
Surprisingly, the capital city is the coldest spot we've visited. Tomorrow morning we are due to go out whale watching with the ship. There's two camera crews aboard, hungry for pictures of a whale. According to the weather forecast, they may be disappointed.
Hofn was the last stop we made before Reykjavik. Although not the most receptive place we've been, we met some interesting people. Including a fisherman who claimed that he caught 400-500 dolphins as 'by catch' every year, and a retired British couple who spend their holidays travelling the world, whale-watching.
Sadly, the only whale we have seen since a close encounter with the Minke in mirror-glass still waters in Seydisfjordur was the dead whale on the back of a whaling ship.
We think the tour has been a success. We have made a unique approach to the people of Iceland and have engaged in dialogue with them in a way they would perhaps not expect. The places that seems to have worked best have often been the we were sceptical about (such as Isafjordur and Seydisfjordur).
In service station where we stopped for coffee one day, I noticed pictures from a whaling station hanging on the wall. Clearly from the late 1980s, they emotionlessly showed a huge Fin whale being cut up. On the opposing wall by the door, a small sign fluttered somewhat forlornly in the draught. It was advertising whale-watching trips in Reykjavik.
Iceland portrays itself as a land of contrasts. It is clear that some of those contrasts cannot happily coexist. Hopefully this tour will have dispelled many of the myths about Greenpeace in Iceland, and will have started to make people think about the conflicts between whaling and whale-watching.
Visit the Rainbow Warrior crew's weblog.
