Saturday, 12 July 2014

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: The skies were beautifully lid up when we sailed out into Faxa Bay. The mind-blowing visibility granted us the best look at Snaefellsjokull while the sun was setting in a firework of reds, yellows and oranges. Towards Reykjavik a rainbow coloured the skies in the spectrum of light. We were looking for whales for quite some time before eventually a single Minke Whale surfaced in the sun's glare. The individual was changing path quickly and staying down for extended dives. Thus tracking or even getting a proper look at it proved difficult. On the way back we enjoyed the setting sun with some live music. The passengers were given a complementary ticket, to allow them to come back for another whale adventure with Elding.

-Dominik Schmid

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had calmed down for the evening tour and we headed out into the bay under almost perfect sighting conditions. And where our tour at 13:00 had left off we found another Minke Whale - the first one of 4-6 individuals we saw over the course of this tour... Some of them were fairly elusive and disappeared after only a few surfacings. But others surprised us by coming up right in front or on the side of the boat as they slowly travelled past. We got some very nice looks at one individual´s blowholes as it surfaced right in front of the boat and swam away from us. Shortly after we turned to head back to the harbour another individual surfaced on our side as if to say goodbye before we enjoyed the sail back in the evening sun with some music on the way...

- Linda

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: we went to a different area this time but one that had virtually no birds apart from the odd Northern Gannet. Then suddenly we noticed a busy blow in a distance. Thinking it might have come from a Humpback Whale, we became excited as Humpbacks are not often seen here in summer, before we realised that a Minke Whale we then saw would have been the culprit. We went over to it and got to see it surfacing 4-5 times very close. Other boats that that been searching further north without finding anything then arrived so we left it and went in search of others of its kind but once the other boats had left it, we went back and enjoyed more encounters with this delightful summer visitor before heading back to Reykjavik.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sun had showed up, it was not raining and it was only little windy. But although the sea conditions were really good it took us a long time to see any cetaceans. But while we searched for them we enjoyed watching the Birdes flying all around the boat. Finally we saw a groupe of 3-5 White-Beaked Dolphins, they were quite elusive and it was not easy to follow them. We saw the Dolphins only jump few times up in the air before we lost them. We left that airea but in only few minutes we came to an airea with 3 Minke Whales. They surfaced few times very close to the boat, only 30-40 meters away from us. So this was a good ending to a easy tour.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: we began by sailing up towards the mouth of Hvalfjörður fjord where our sistership Hafsúlan had seen some dolphins about half an hour before, however they had vanished by the time we arrived. We spent a bit of time scanning the area and giving people a good view of the countryside but then went out to where Hafsúlan was. There was a promising area, a pure feeding frency held up by birds of 5-6 different species, including a number of lovely Manx' Searwaters, my favourite along with Northern Gannets. Among them were at least 3 different Minke Whales, including one that our researcher Jonathan idendified as 'Square'. After this delightful encounter, we spent a little time with some 4-5 White-beaked Dolphins that we spotted travelling at fast rate of knots towards Snæfellsnes Peninsula and managed to keep up with eventually.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The conditions were not too bad as we sailed out for the first trip of the day. There was some wind, but the waves only got higher further out in the bay. Shortly after we left the harbour we saw a single Harbour Porpoise. It disappeared after only two surfacings - as the porpoises often do - but we were not too bothered as we were heading towards a pod of White-Beaked Dolphins! As we came closer we discovered quite quickly that there was more than one pod and that there were individuals leaping out of the water in all of the three pods we saw. All in all, there must have been at least 20-30 individuals and there was lots to see!! The dolphins were leaping, breaching, jumping sideways and slapping their bodies onto the water surface. Finally, after watching them for more than 30 minutes we moved further out in search of something else. We ended up finding at least 4 different Minke Whales. Most of them seemed fairly shy but we still got some nice looks at some of them! As we headed back towards Reykjavík we were all more than happy with the way the tour had turned out - what an amazing show these dolphins had performed! =))

- Linda

Birds seen on today's tour include: Northern Gannets, Northern Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Arctic Terns, Arctic Skuas, Common Guillemots, Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, Atlantic Puffins, Manx Shearwaters.