Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: After one tour with minke whales and one tour with white-beaked dolphins, we were wondering what we would get to see in this tour. Thanks to the wind, the conditions were a bit rougher but we still tried to make it as comfortable as possible and many people enjoyed the trip on the rocking boat. It didn't take long until we reached an area with lots of feeding birds, for example northern gannets plunge-diving in to the water to catch fish. The area looked promising to us and, indeed, we found two minke whales. They surfaced rather irregular but since they came very close to our boat and we could spent some time with them, all of our passengers could see the minke whales up close, before we headed back to the harbour.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: After the great morning tour and a little bit of sunburn we steamed out of Reykjavik. Hoping for another encounter with the dolphins close to the harbour I had everyone out early to search. The sea was dead quiet at this time so we moved further out. Spotting a large flock of diving birds we approached carefully to investigate. We had gannets diving and skuas chasing other birds but alas no cetaceans. Without giving up hope we moved north. Then all of a sudden I spotted the fin and sleek back of a minke whale, it surfaced one more time before going for a deep dive. On the lookout we spotted a minke 5 minutes later at the back of the boat, then almost at the same time at the front of the boat! We kept spotting two large minkes before a juvenile one also appeared next to the boat. They came so close that we could smell the smelly fish breath of a minke! They seemed very relaxed next to us taking their time at the surface. I think by the time we headed to port everyone was delighted and had some stunning views!
-Tommy Torrades
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had picked up a little but since this morning but this tour was still very comfortable. We went out to find one of the minke whales again, but instead we came across a pod of 4-6 white-beaked dolphins after about 45 minutes. We followed them for a while and saw the a few meters from the boat, before they vanished and we didn't see them again. However, shortly after that we found another pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins. They seemed to be traveling first, until one of them started to leap and jump out of the water. The other dolphins of the group soon joined and so we had a group of dolphins jumping right in front of us. They were putting on quite a show for us and were amazing to watch, and I think no one cared that we didn't see a minke whale on this tour!
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: What a beautiful morning to leave Reykjavik and savour faxafloi bay. Somedays you can feel like it has to be a good day for spotting cetaceans and today was certainly one of those days. We hadn´t travelled more than 10 minutes outside the bay before spotting a large pod of white-beaked dolphins. They were possibly feeding with one juvenile being very playful, leaping out of the water. After a few minutes we left them and moved out further in to the bay. We kept our eyes peeled and spied two blows and went to investigate. Unfortunately the minke whale was very shy and didn´t surface near us again. However whilst waiting for it to surface another pod of dolphins wanting attention came up to the boat and performed many acrobatic displays. Soon it was time to return to port but we kept an eye out for other species on the way back in. A successful tour if I do say so.
-Tommy Torrades
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: We went out from Reykjavík this morning in to a clam bay with almost no wind and excellent whale watching conditions. It didn't take long until we came a shy minke whale, that we saw a few times before it vanished. As we decided to move on, we spotted a second minke whale that also was difficult to spot. However, as we kept searching we finally found three more minke whales feeding in the same area and giving as a good look at them. We stayed with them for a while before we had to start the way back to the harbour again. In between the minke whale sightings we also saw two small groups of harbour porpoises with 3-5 animals.
- Hanna Michel
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmars, puffins, razorbills, lesser and great black- backed gulls, common guillemots, eider ducks, skuas and kittiwakes.