It turned out, due to the weather, our first day was the best and we could not even make it out of the harbour on a couple of subsequent days during the trip. However, day one was a remarkable day set to a backdrop of a gorgeously long sunrise and sunset (with no clear break in between) illuminating the snowy mountains with a deep purple glow. That is also not to say that on the other days we had no success. Far from it! Norway hosts the greatest aggregation of orcas and humpbacks in the world and I have no idea how many whales we saw on any given day on the water.
Resembling a drunken chicken-owl cross, I stumbled back and forth across the rocking boat with neck and head swiveling and jerking to catch sight of whales breaching the water all around the boat. It was also remarkable to see orcas and humpbacks living together in, relative, harmony. I say relative, as the humpbacks crashing indiscriminately through herring carousels that have been carefully orchestrated by the orcas, would be tiresome if you were the orca.