FRIDAY, 12 JUNE 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We headed out to where Elding had last seen the humpback whale in hopes of spotting it again but it had apparently been traveling fast south-west after we left it on our 13 o'clock tour and we saw no sign of it anywhere despite the calm seas and good visibility. Even though we didn't encounter the humpack we had an amazing tour with up to 5 minkes in the same area at one time! Some of the minke whales came so close we could recognize them without having to look at pictures and throughout the tour the minke whale Spider showed itself, doing surfacing sequences and arching it's back really high before going on deep dives. Towards the end of the tour we encountered a pod of white beaked dolphins who were splashing about, jumping out of the water and breaching. All in all a dream day for a biologist and smiles all around on our way back.

- Svala Jónsdóttir

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: Just WOW! Where to start???! The wind had died down from the morning and the surface was nearly completely still with only a little rippling. We hadn´t gone 15 mins in to the bay before I spotted a minke whale, however we did not stop as the other boats had spotted a humpback whale!! Straight to it we went, the slow speed was agonising and I couldn´t hide my excitement. Not long after but feeling like an eternity we saw the magnificent blow of a humpback. Followed by it´s enormous tail and off it dove. It was diving for about ten minutes at a time but we managed to get some great views. But of course some white-beaked dolphins wanted to be viewed and they swam passed us feeling snubbed. Without  leaving the area another two minke whales came to us. Before long we were sailing back with massive grins on our faces! Just outside of the harbour another pod of dolphins appeared as if to say goodbye. Very awesome tour! 

-Tommy Torrades

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We went out with a mixed group of passengers and a group from Háskóli Ungafólksins (The Youth University) that was studying whales this week. I had not finished going through the sight seeing/clock practice with the passengers when we spotted our first white-beaked dolphins. We saw a large group of a few pods toghether among them some juveniles and then off in the distance we spotted a whale traveling with a pod of dolphins. When we came closer we saw the first humpback whale in Faxaflói this summer season! It went down for a 14 minute dive and then surfaced close to our boat, it was rolling around and moved from the right side to the front of the boat all the time being surrounded by breaching white beaked dolphins. We followed the humpback for some time, it went down for a couple of 10-14 minute long dives and was constantly followed by a pod of dolphins. There were also pods of dolphins all around our boat ranging from 4-7 individuals that were leaping from the water, doing flips and leaping rolls. Then we spotted minke whales to the back of the boat, two surfaced at the same time with about 100 m between them.There was so much action! We waited for the humpback to do one last deep dive and then we headed back with shouts of joy and smiles all across our faces when only 20 minutes away from the harbour one lone minke surfaced one last time behind the boat. What an exciting end to such a high action tour!

- Svala Jónsdóttir

Tour at 10:00

Report from Skruður: Cloudy sky but no rain met us on this 10 o´clock tour. We sailed ut in a calm sea, joining the boats that left on the morning tour in search for cetaceans. After 40 minutes of sailing we got reports that the other boats were seeing dolphins. We even didn´t get to the area before we spotted a pod of 7-8 white-beaked dolphins infront of us. They were busy feeding, with a constant flock of arctic terns flying above them, showing us were in the water the dolphins were. We spent some time with these beautiful animals, but then left them alone to search for larger animals. We soon saw a minke whale surfacing 2 times infront of us, but then disapeared from the area. We continued our search and found a small pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises and another minke whale, before we had to start head back towards the harbour. On our way back we saw one more pod of 3-4 harbour porpoises and one more minke whale. All and all a nice tour out in Faxaflói.      

- Marcus Bergström

Tour at 09:00

Report from Elding: The sun was shining and a light northerly was blowing as we made our way out in to the bay. The sea conditions almost perfect, with a little cloud cover. We could really take in the beautiful vistas of faxafloi bay. Only about 20 mins in to our journey we spotted white-beaked dolphins and without warning a minke whale surfaced in front of them. But the minke was very elusive and did not want to impart on the dolphins and disappeared. The dolphins were not as shy and came all around the boat. The time came where the dolphins too decided to hide, so made our way further. After 25 mins we were treated to a beautiful minke whale that wanted all of us to get a good look at it. With memory cards full of pictures we called it a day and slowly made our way back to Reykjavik. 

-Tommy Torrades

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, arctic terns, northern fulmars puffins, lesser black-backed gulls, manx shearwater, common guillemots, eider ducks, and kittiwakes.