Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: The sun was slowly setting, but piercing through the clouds randomly throughout the tour. The wind had settled down, leaving the bay in calm conditions -perfect for whale watching. Already early on many splashes ahead of us made us aware of the presence of a small pod of three White-beaked Dolphins. They were approaching us initially and were swimming along side of us. One dolphin with a very distinctly shaped dorsal fin was even breaching several times. Just minutes after we left these three dolphins, 2-3 other pods (each 5-7 individuals strong) of White-beaked dolphins appeared and displayed every behaviour in the book: leaping, breaching, tail slapping, chasing, and even a bit of bow-riding. We followed another 3 for quite some time. They were showing breaching with final tail slapping, possibly huddling together some prey or stunning them. After we left the dolphins, one Minke Whale surfaced 2-3 times in the sun's glare, but was not seen again after. Already on our way back another Minke Whale appeared traveling at some distance to us, but giving all passengers a great final whale encounter.

-Dominik Schmid

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sea conditions stayed similar as at the 13 o´clock tour but this time we were below some rain clouds getting a bit wet. As most were dressed in the Elding overalls we stayed warm and dry beneath though. After a while some White-Beaked Dolphins appeared quite close to us but as there were more showing an active behaviour further away in front of us we continued towards them. First one could think that this was a far spread out pod but later as they separated we filed them as two pods in our report. We stayed with the second pod of around 6 individuals, two of them younger ones. But all in all there were more than 10 at the beginning. The active group gave us quite a spectacle. One was spinning around his own axis at least twice, another was slapping his head repeatedly onto the water surface, one even spy-hopped (holding up his head out of the water to have a look around above water), there was some tail-slapping and several leaps. They also approached us showing us why they are called white beaked dolphins while they came up with their white beaks first. For a while we had them bow-riding and we saw them very well under water. We watched them around half an hour how they were changing constantly their behaviour, like swimming synchronously in a line or milling at a very small area while every dolphin was heading into another direction. Then they sped up and went away from us with some leaps showing us their flukes as they left us behind. That's when we turned around and spotted a Minke Whale. When we were waiting for the whale to reappear there were still some dolphins visible at some distance to our side. So we could watch a whale several times coming up, dolphins, some scattered birds and lion's mane jellyfish in the same area before we made our way back to the harbour looking at the sunlit town Hafnarfjörður.

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: This afternoon, we had to spend a long time looking around before we managed to see something. But finally, after more than 75 minutes, a minke whale surfaced right in front of us. A bit later, another one came up! They were taking quite long deep dives but nevertheless, we managed to get a few very nice looks at them, although we would have liked to see some more of them. But of course we have to accept whatever nature offers us and this afternoon, the minkes were just spending a lot of time under water. On the way back, we enjoyed the nice scenery that the Faxaflói bay has to offer.

-Arnór Tumi

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: With very little wind and almost no swell we were heading out into Faxaflói. Even if the sky was overcast the whole tour, there were some sunbeams shining through the clouds illuminating parts of the grey sea occasionally in a golden light. We saw that there was heavy rain falling over the land but we stayed quite dry though. Despite the good conditions it was not an easy task to find some cetaceans. After a while we found a Minke Whale which turned out to be the only one showing in the whole area we were searching. This whale was travelling away so we mostly saw it from behind when he came up. But we watched its slim body diameter and his silver shiny back at least several times. Sometimes as our viewing angle changed a bit we saw his dorsal fin better and we were able to tell that it was not the same whale with whom we spent more time on the morning tour. This whale this time had no obvious markings like notches on his fin or body and as we never saw it in a 90° angle which would be the ideal one for photo identification, our researchers on board could not compare the unique form of the dorsal and so this minke whale individual remained unidentified. But we saw it!

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: This morning, the winds and seas were calm. We headed due north and after about an hour, we saw the first white-beaked dolphins. They were in a pod of about 5 animals, some of them were leaping, showing off their whole bodies! After a while, a minke whale was spotted. We tried to approach it but it took a deep dive as we came closer. There turned out to be four more minkes in the area. They were slowly swimming along, surfacing a few times before taking long dives. On the way back, another pod of white-beaked dolphins was spotted, again of around 5 animals. Very nice sightings on a beautiful summer morning.

-Arnór Tumi

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Overcast skies greeted us as we sailed out from Reykjavik today as well as low winds and good conditions for whale watching. We began by heading towards the north of the bay and had to sail for about an hour before we found our first cetaceans of the day. These cetaceans turned out to be white-beaked dolphins, about 3-5 of them travelling quite calmly. We got some good looks at these individuals but they didn't stop and talk to us for long and swam off after about 10 minutes. A good start nevertheless and we were confident that more animals would be in the area. Just as we had turned away we spotted a black back and a dorsal fin belonging to a minke whale! This individual was quite elusive though as well as a few others we found in the same area. We tried for a while to get a look at them but in the end we decided to head elsewhere. Fortunately we didn't have to go far and we soon found another minke, identified by the photo researchers as an individual named Tap. Tap was quite friendly and surfaced very calmly close to our front. We followed Tap around for the rest of the tour and ended with Tap surfacing about 25 metres from our starboard bow. All in all a good tour and we headed back to Reykjavik quite pleased.

-Ívar Elí

Birds seen on todays tour include: Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Puffins, Common Guillemots, Razorbill, Manx Shearwater, Gannets, Black-backed gulls, Arctic Skuas, Arctic Terns.