Saturday, 02 August 2014

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The winds were still nonexistent in the Faxaflói bay as we headed out at 5 pm. We went to the area where we had seen the minke whales on an earlier tour and did find them again. However, this time the minke whales were not surfacing as frequently as before and always surfaced quite far away from us. Still, since the seas were so calm, we got to see them quite well. After a while, we headed further out, found another big minke whale and a pod of white-beaked dolphins that approached us! After a while, another pod of dolphins was spotted in the distance as they were breaching and splashing. When we came, they had stopped breaching but were still there and put on a nice show for us. On the way back, one more minke whale was spotted which makes a total of around 5 minke whales and 16 to 18 dolphins in two pods. Very nice!

-Arnór Tumi

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: There was a significant change in the afternoon - the sun showed up! We had no wind and no swell and the sky was at the beginning overcast, then partly clouded and at the end overcast again but while the sun came out it was very welcome. Snæfellsjökull disappeared behind some clouds but the sea visibility was top. Thanks to these conditions it was possible to spot wildlife in the distance and we started with birds, like the puffins. As we came to the area of the minke whales it was not easy to keep track how many they were. All in all we definitely saw 5 maybe up to 7 if we didn't meet the same one twice. The most impressive one was one with a smooth looking dorsal fin which came up many times but twice close by the boat as we had the engine in neutral. As the water was calm we could see its body through the water surface and his white pectoral patch was shimmering greenish. First it was visible as it swam along side the boat and the second time it was while arching its back and we could make out both pectoral fins under water while diving down away from us. We could also perfectly hear its powerful breath being that close without wind or engine running. On our way back very close to shore we found our last minke (included in the counting). This animal arised along the end of Seltjarnarnes, lifting its snout tip above the water surface every time it emerged. A very good afternoon with beautiful observations of the most abundant whale here at this time of the year, like we could experience this afternoon very well.

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We headed out onto a mirror calm Faxaflói bay this afternoon under a clear sky and with very good visibility. After a short while, we spotted a minke whale very close to the shore. It appeared to be resting and we stayed with it while it surfaced regularly, keeping a steady speed and direction. After we left the first minke whale, we spotted some more in the distance but decided to head futher out. Once we had sailed for around 10 minutes, a pod of white-beaked dolphins was spotted with around 8 animals in it. They came very close and we could even hear them breath and see their little blows coming out of the surface of the calm sea. On the say back, another pod of dolphins was spotted from a distance but we never got a good look at it. Shortly after, two more minke whales were spotted very close to the shore at Kerlingasker. One of them was lunge feeding in the surface and came up many times so we got some nice looks. All in all, there were around 5 minkes and 10 to 16 dolphins. Good sightings, good weather, good scenery, awesome tour.

-Arnór Tumi

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: We found the same sea- and weather conditions as described from the Hafsúlan tour at nine. It was mainly dry but sometimes we had some light rain. Even though we enjoyed great spotting conditions, the ocean seemed quite empty this morning, few birds from time to time scattered over the area we searched in, but no bigger flocks of flying birds. A lot of passengers have been attentive and looking in the right direction when suddenly one harbour porpoise leaped twice quite close in front of us. As he showed us his whole appearance, except the tailfin, we had a short moment to admire his tiny body with a yellowish line at his side between the grey back and the white belly. Then when everybody was ready to see them they appeared in a couple of two together at the surface heading away from us coming repeatedly up to breath everytime a bit further away but gave us the chance of 3 to 4 glimpses more at the smallest resident cetacean from the Faxaflói cetaceans. This is quite a rare sight as these animals tend to be quite shy and are rarely leaping and easly hidden behind some waves. Not today though! Later we found one rather elusive minke whale which was mostly heading away and so often seen in the distance. We could observe some direction changes but never got a proper view of the dorsal fin from a good angle so we could not indentify this individual. But we were glad to have found some wildlife in this quite devoid looking area and the harbour porpoises brought up the rating of the tour.

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This morning we had very good conditions for whale watching with calm seas and overcast skies. Visibility was also very good and we could see very far, so far that we saw Snæfellsjökull on the Snæfell peninsula. Early on in the tour as we headed out to the main whale watching area we saw a splash and a tiny back and dorsal fin. These turned out to belong to a Harbour porpoise, this lone individual was only seen a couple of times though and we headed on further out to sea. After this individual sighting we searched on for a while until an alert passengers spotted some dorsal fins behind us. Turning to investigate we made best speed towards the sighting and spotted a pod of three to four White-beaked dolphins. These animals were as always very beautiful and we had an excellent encounter with them. They surfaced slowly around us giving us a good look at their white and grey backs and elongated dorsal fins. We left the dolphins to search elsewhere and were soon alerted to a Minke whale near by. This minke was hard to spot at first and proved to be quite elusive. We did however manage to get a look at it as it surfaced three times before swimming off elsewhere. A good tour with the peak being the lovely encounter with the dolphins.

-Ívar Elí

Birds seen on today's tours include: Atlantic puffins, lesser black-backed gulls, kittiwakes, manx shearwaters, fulmars, arctic terns, arctic skua, northern gannets, common guillemots, european storm petrels.