Monday, 23 June 2014

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: this was a difficult tour. The south-eastern wind was always on the increase, causing uncomfortable boat movements. As to whales, they were there for sure but playing very difficult. Three or four times we saw big splashes, suggesting a a breaching whale, but it was always in a great distance and each time the animal/s only breached once. Hence we never saw the 'culprit' so we don't know if it was a Minke or a Humpback Whale. It is unusual for these animals to only breach once, we have seen both species breach dozens of time in a row. Towards the end of the tour, we saw 1 Minke Whale surface once on each side towards the rear but in about 2-300 meter distance and the waves saw to that we could barely turn the boat to follow it. As a result of all this, our patient passengers got complimentary tickets that can be used for any of our tours within the next two years and we sure hope that we will see as many of them as possible returning soon.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The weather was good, little windy but sunny. After 35 minutes we saw a group of five to seven White Beaked Dolphins jumping into the air, we stayed with them for about ten minutes and then we went to look for other cetaceans. The highlight of the tour was at a very lively area, there was clearly a lot of food there because of all the seabirds including diving gannets and the Minke Whales circling around. We had at least 3 Minke Whales all around the boat and others in the distance, seen by their visible blows and one that gave us a nice show surfacing close and many times. We ended the tour with a great show when we saw another or the same group of dolphins jumping up in the air again and again.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: the wind was on the increase throughout the tour and it made the latter part of it not so comfortable but sightings wise it was fine. Our researcher Jonathan spotted the first Minke Whale but we only saw it twice. Then we headed out to our other whale watching boat Hafsúlan that had found a pod of 5-7 White-beaked Dolphins but left them when we arrived as we try to keep the number of boats around the animals at any one time at a minimum. It was difficult to follow them due to the rather rough sea so when they disappeared, we decided to go and check for Minkes. It took us a while to find our next target, some more dolphins, jumping this time! That was great to see as always but then it was time to head back as the wind was only getting worse.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It was getting more windy but warmer with the sun shining on us more than in the morning tour. We headed out the bay, sailing for about 50 minutes without seeing any cetaceons but than we got to an airea with three Minke Whales. The whales were all around the boat but they were all gone after ten minutes. We went to other arieas and saw a groupe of five to seven White Beaked Dolphins jumping high into the air, this was amazing show, but unfortunetly when we got closer to the dolphins they stopped playing around. But still it was wonderfull to watch the dolphins travel slowly with the boat.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: our first Minke Whale on this tour was only seen twice, clearly it was travelling somewhere and going so fast that we decided to allow it to do so in peace. The next one was only seen once but then the third seemed to be feeding so it was much easier to watch than the preceding two. Towards the end we then had three relatively easy Minkes close to us so all in all at least 6 Minke Whales on this windy morning.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The weather was nice, not so much wind and the sea conditions good. We headed out east and we came to an airea where there were two Minke Whales, each surfaced two times but then they took a deeper dive and went away. We kept on going and saw another minke whale who also surfaced two times before it disappeared, we stayed at that airea for a longer time because we saw a blow that we thought belonged to another species but it didn´t resurface at same place again. So over all this morning tour was quite calm but still we got to see at least three minke whales.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

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