Monday, 09 June 2014

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sea conditions had gotten even better for the evening tour - absolutely perfect sighting conditions under light grey clouds! And after a little over 30 minutes of sailing we were back in minke paradise... First we watched two Minke Whales surface right next to each other for a while before they parted ways again. Then we moved a bit further and were soon surrounded by minke whales all around. In total we saw at least 8 different individuals and were able to identify two of them right away: "Flickr" and "Need U So Bad". The whales seemed completely relaxed and slowly moved all around us minding their own business. Together with the mirror-like sea surface, lots of seabirds and some Harbour Porpoises they made for an amazing atmosphere! We were able to watch the minkes for over an hour and also got some nice close-up looks. Another great ending to an amazing day!

- Linda

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: not thinking we'd be able to catch up with the Sei Whales again, as they had been heading towards the open sea, we instead went out to where the Hafsúlan was but before we could get there, a pod of 30-40 White-beaked Dolphins caught our attention. Their behaviour indicated that they were on a mission and that mission was feeding. It was clear that they were herding fish together and it became even clearer when two of them started slapping their flukes at the water while another one started slapping its head, seemingly trying to scare fish towards their mates. After a lovely half an hour or so watching this, we decided to leave them in peace and check out the Minkes that Hafsúlan had left us. We arrived right in time to watch what was probably 6-9 Minke Whales enjoying their late group lunch of most likely sand eel along with a number of Arctic Terns. What a show it was and in such calm beautiful weather; sometimes we'd have perhaps three or four of them surfacing within meters from each other. Beautiful!

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sea conditions were perfect, almost like glass with a slight roll. The overcast skies provided a light grey colour to the sea making it easy to spot the whales, dolphins and porpoises this afternoon. Our first cetacean of the tour was a small pod of four White-beaked Dolphins, they seemed to just be milling in the area occasionally coming close. It is aways beautiful to see the dolphins swimming just beneath the surface, following the white of the animals. We left the dolphins with another whale watching vessel as we travelled further offshore, soon seeing Minke Whales surfacing everywhere. We traveled slowly through the area until we found an area of at least 8-10 maybe more just milling (slowly surfacing in the same area). We turned off our engines and enjoyed the sounds of nature. Arctic terns chattering, the minke whales powerful breathe and 3-4 Harbour Porpoises surfacing. Sometimes you could see 5-7 minke whales surfacing at the same time, all heading in different directions but within 300m of the boat. Once more whale watching vessels came to the area we moved off to end our tour with another pod of white-beaked dolphins, this time about 10-15 individuals that were slowly traveling, then suddenly changed direction and sped up, a couple started breaching like they suddenly found food. An incredible end to an incredible tour.

- Megan

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: we went out to where Hafsúlan was already but with several more whale-watching boats around, we decided it would be better to search somewhere else, even if there were 4-6 Minke Whales around. So we went to the west alongside the Reykjanes Peninsula but nothing came up. But then luck struck. Another whale-watching boat reported to us that they had seen 'two large whales' about 2.7 miles off Seltjarnarnes (one of the towns that make up the metropolitan area). We were so curious, what could it be? Humpback Whales often travel together in pairs and they are large. Minke Whales are smaller but they can also be reasonably large. We spotted tall blows from some distance but not the whales themselves right away, then a brief glimpse of the back of one of them convinced us for a short while that it was just large Minke Whales. But then we started adding things up. Tall blow, ambigious surface movements, somewhat thick dorsal fin. It was indeed something else, it was 2 Sei Whales! We were over the moon as this was only the third time in Elding's history that we have a confirmed sighting of this normally offshore species! We followed them alongside the city as they swam in a docile manner towards the open ocean, normally at the mere depth of only 34 meters which again is nothing for such a large offshore beast. Marvellous is all I can say!

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sky was covered when we left the harbour this morning, but we did not encounter any rain during the trip and the sighting conditions were quite good. A little less of the small waves would have made them even better, but it was still a nice and calm morning. Not too long after we leaving the harbour we saw a big splash made by an animal jumping out of the water. We moved closer and saw it breach three times, but were still unable to tell what species of cetacean it was. It was neither a minke whale nor a white-beaked dolphin! It took us almost the entire trip to find out what we had seen at the beginning: it was a breaching Basking Shark!! After waiting around the area for a while we headed further out and found 4-6 Minke Whales. Unfortunately, most of them were quite elusive and often hard to predict. Nevertheless, we got some good looks at a minke whale surfacing in front of our boat. Additionally, we were quite lucky with the Harbour Porpoises we saw: not only were they not as shy as normally, they even showed us their little bodies as they porpoised around us... On the way back we saw two large blows in the distance. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to check out that area. The blows later turned out to belong to two sei whales! What an unbelievable morning!!

- Linda

Birds seen on todays tours include: Fulmars, Atlantic Puffins, Kittiwakes, Black-backed Gulls, Arctic Skuas, Arctic Terns, Razorbills, Common Guillemots, Manx Shearwaters, Black-headed Gulls, Eider Ducks.