Wednesday, 04 June 2013

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The weather cleared up and the strong afternoon sun warmed our backs on the way out into the bay of Flaxafloí. Accompanied by a couple (5-10) of elusive Harbour Porpoises on the way out, we soon enough got word off a Minke Whale around one of the other Whale Whatching Boats. On our way towards the other boat however, we got distracted by a Minke Whale surfacing slowly and in close proximity of our vessel. When it surfaced again close by, the passangers could even smell a wiff of the Minke Whales stinky breath. Scanning the water surface in some distance we were able to follow the individual for quite some time until it submerged in some distance to the front of the boat, when suddenly an attentive passanger was pointing out a Minke Whale passing by just beneath the back of the vessel. The clarity of the water made it possible to see the outline of this Minke Whale and even view the white patches at its flippers. The whale seemed calm and not disturbed by our presence, but in fact milled around the boat for several minutes: surfacing slowly, diving beneath the boat, popping up in the front and back randomly. When the other whale watching boat approached, it even had an inquisitive look at this vessel, but soon returned to ours again. After a longer dive period the whale headed towards the Whale Fjord, when unexpectidly another Minke Whale accompanied the one we observed and both dove down and surfaced synchroniously for several times. By then we could also spot another 10-15 Harbour Porpoises besides the whales and in the far distance another Minke Whale. All in all, a brilliant and rare tour with an interactive Minke Whale and several others close by.

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: The sun was out and we headed towards the same area as this morning. After some time sailing we slowed down and watched probably 10-12 Minke whales surfacing around us. There was two minke whales that were traveling together, surfacing both at once and rolling right next to each other so they were touching. Although it is quite hard to say for sure, but this behaviour could have been a mating behaviour, which we dont see often here in the feeding grounds. We watched the minke whales for over an hour and inbetween 10-15 Harbour porpoises showed up. The minke whales were great, surfacing sometimes 4 at at time infront of the boat. This was such a nice tour with sunshine and loads of cetaceans. Although it rained for a few minutes it just made the tour more specieal and the sightings seemed even more spectacular.- Freydís Ósk

Tour at 13:00

We went straight to the same area as on the morning tour and it basically started the same way with greetings from Porpoises here and there. Then the Minkes came to play and I don't think any of the tours I have been guiding on in the past week has seen so many docile Minkes, plus so many close to each other. At times we had perhaps 3 virtually next to each other and at another point it would have been possible to look all around the boat and see at least one Minke. Altogether I think there must have been at least 7-9 Minkes in the area and just 40 minute sailing or so from the busy Reykjavik Harbour!

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 10:00Report from Elding: The weather was beautiful although the sky was quite cloudy. We sailed for about 40-50 minutes before we got to an area where some animals had been spotted. After we stopped the boat and started to scan the surface closely we spotted at least 8-10 Minke whales in the area. They were probably feeding as the fish detector showed some fish close to the bottom. They surfaced slowly and seemed to be not bothered by our presence. In between the minke whale sightings a couple of Harbour porpoises surfaced around us and we probably saw around 15-20 individuals. As we headed back to the harbour the sun was coming out and made the ocean seem like it was made from glitter, just beautiful.

- Freydís Ósk

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The visibility was excellent as we left the harbour so we could point out a great number of landscape features to our passengers as we were on our way out. Reasonably soon the Harbour Porpoises started popping up and judging by the onboard fish-finder, they were there to feed. We slowed down in order not to disturb them but there was just the odd one popping up here and there, no pods or seemingly even pairs. Then the first Minke popped up close to another whale-watching boat. We went there and got to enjoy it rather well alongside probably 4-5 others at least while they did the same as the Porpoises seemingly were doing. A very pleasant tour and even better because we had a class from one of the Reykjavik children's school with us who were over the moon with the experience!

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Birds seen on todays tour include: Common Guillemot, Atlantic Puffin, Northern Fulmar, Kittiwake, Black-Backed Gull, Eider Duck, Arctic Tern, Arctic Skua, Brent Goose.