Monday, 04 August 2014

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The weather was getting better in the evening and the sea conditions were really good so we could easily see animals from greater distance. While we headed futher out we got news from another whale watching boat that they had seen a whale. When we came to that boat we saw that it was a minke whale, although it was traveling quite fast we saw it few times. Then we spotted splashes in far distance so we kept on going in hope to see the animal that had made that splash and after few minutes we saw a group of 4-6 white beaked dolphins. Unfortunately we did not get a good look at the dolphins but instead we got amazing shight of minke whales, they were literally all around us! So over all we saw at least 8 minke whales on this tour!

-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 14:00Report from Elding: we started off with two minke whales but then Hafsúlan called us with the news that they had some docile White-beaked Dolphins nearby and so we went in their direction. We found one Minke Whale on the way but otherwise went straight. However, the dolphins had gone once we got there so we never saw them. We waited a bit to see if they would reappear but they never did so we went to the same area as this morning to finish off the tour, where we saw at least three further minke whales so all in all 6-8 of those seen over basically two different areas on this fine and very calm afternoon tour.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The wind was calming down in the afternoon and some of the cloud cover lifted when we 'set sails'. Our first minke whale was visible from far away and upon approach was peacefully surfacing close to the boat. However, it changed direction quite frequently and unpredictably, making it so much more exciting, when the whale suddenly surfaced only 20 meters from the boat. The blow was clearly audible in those cases and twice the whale was so close one could make out the white stripes on the minke´s pectoral fins. We assumed there were more minke whales around us, and in fact, two more showed themselves while we were watching the first one. At least one of the others was coming close, too. After we had spend a fantastic 45 minutes with these whales, we wanted to look for something else. We didn´t have to search for long, when we saw a small pod (2) of white-beaked dolphins (and two more minke whales on the way). The dolphins, however, were traveling and didn´t seem in a 'human-watching' mood. In summary, another excellent whale watching tour.

-Dominik Schmid

Tour at 10:00Report from Elding: on this tour we had a total of 3 minke whales, one of which our researcher Jonathan managed to identify as 'Cici' (a minke whale new to the catalogue and seen a couple of times this year). All were seen in one area, which had abundance of food according to the onboard fishfinder, hence the presence of the whales as well as the great number of birds such as Northern Gannets (at one time 10 were seen flying in one line above us, a spectacular sight indeed) and Manx' Shearwaters. We also saw at least 3 individual harbour porpoises but only for a moment each one.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: A mild breeze from the east and a slight overcast were following us out at sea. Not long after we reached the area of the bay of Faxafloí where we had been most successful in sighting whales, we got word of a minke whale with another whale watching vessel. This particular individual seemed to be undisturbed by the presence of the boats. The whale surfaced frequently, changed direction often and was often seen as close to our boat as 20m. Furthermore, it did not stay down for very long, which may was a result of the shallow depth (25m) of the area of the bay we were in. A second minke whale appeared towards the back of the boat and similar to the first one, it stayed with the vessel for some time. However, little to no fish was shown by the fish finder on board, thus one must assume the whales were simply traveling, potentially looking for food, or even feeling intrigued by the whale watching vessel. Some passangeres were even able to catch a whiff of minke whale breath when the whale surfaces close by. In the background Snaefellsjökull was overshadowing the bay, making this trip so much more special than it was already.

-Dominik Schmid

Birds seen on today's tours include: Arctic terns, northern gannets, puffins, eider ducks, cormorants, kittiwakes, lesser black-backed gulls, black guillemot, common guillemot, manx shearwaters, great skua, arctic skua and fulmars.