Friday, 9 May 2014

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The morning gave us a very entertaining show and with more excellent weather our spirits were very high this fine afternoon. More perfectly calm ocean and warm wind, even a tour without sightings would have been enjoyable. But we had some great sightings anyway! On our way to the same area we saw the whales this morning we found a different species, we found White Beaked Dolphins! It was a small pod of just 3 dolphins but they were travelling slowly and so we got a great look at their black and white striped bodies before we moved on to search for something else. As we sailed further out we came across several small pods of 2-3 Harbour Porpoises, more searching gave us what we wanted. A Minke Whale! It was a single minke whale that was surrounded by a huge flock of Northern Gannets that were diving into the water all around us. The minke was feeding too, it even lunge fed at the surface of the water! It was curious too, taking a look at all the boats in the area and coming within metres of us. Though it was just one whale it gave us everything we wanted and more and it was a pleasure to watch this minke today.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 09:00

Report from Elding II and Skruður: It was a very busy morning for us here with Elding, we have large private parties joining us for whale watching and sea angling so we took our scheduled whale watching tour on our smaller boats. We sailed out on wonderful sea conditions, a little choppy at the start but the sea turned to glass later on. It all looked very promising as the birdlife was both abundant and rich.Soon enough we had harbour porpoises popping up here and there and Minke Whales too. At first we followed one minke whale that was going for about 10 minute dives and had to be very patient but later in the tour we found an area with diving gannets and other seabirds and about 3-5 Minke Whales and possibly more in the distance, They seemed to be feeding as they started to surface more quickly and more frequently. Our passengers got a great look in the end. Porpoises were great too seeing 5-7 small pods of 2-3 animals in each encountered here and there throughout the tour.

-Megan and Freydis

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