Monday, 25 May 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: With only three dozen passengers on board we left Reykjaviks harbour this evening, trying to spot the marine mammals we encountered during the day. Even though we didn´t see Midi a third time on this day, we encountered 2 other minke whales. We were following one whale for a long while, since it stayed close to the area were our boat was. It seemed to be feeding, moving around a lot, changing directions constantly. Several flocks of birds as well as our fish finder on board indicated that there was much to feed on under water. Our only encounter with a harbour porpoise was short but very close to the boat. Many passengers enjoyed watching the northern gannets dive into the water hunting for fish even though the ride was not as smooth as in the morning.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: On our second trip on this day we went straight for the area were we had so many encounters in the morning. Reaching this location Márfló it just took a short while until our first sighting with a minke whale. In total we saw 2-3 whales on the tour where one got identified as Midi, also seen on the morning trip. Inbetween we had some very nice encounters with 4-5 harbour porpoises coming up right infront of the boat or on the right side. On this afternoon we even had a bit of rain passing us like a wall, but since it moved on very fast our passengers didn´t mind getting a bit wet since most of them were wearing the warm floatation suits we are offering on our boats. Everybody seemed to enjoy the ride back to Reykjavik after our close encounters with the cetaceans on this trip.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This morning we went out with two boats in search of cetaceans due to the high numbers of passengers wanting to see these amazing animals. It didn't take long until we encountered a big group of white- beaked dolphins, 5-9 animals with at least one calf that were feeding, traveling and leaping out of the water, a spectacle that was very nice to watch. After a while with the dolphins we moved further out looking for other cetaceans and and some amazing sightings with 2-3 different minke whales. One animal even got identified by our researchers as the minke whale Midi, which has been seen here since 2008. During our travels we even had two different pods of harbour porpoises, which were unusually close to the boat and not shy, 4-6 porpoises. At some point we had to turn our boat, saying our goodbyes and headed back to the harbour.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Bird species seen on today's tour include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, black-backed gulls, puffins, cormorants, arctic skuas, great skuas, glaucous gulls, razorbills, common guillemots, shags, arctic terns.