Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: We left the harbour in good conditions, the weather looked good so we were excited. On our way out the wind picked up a bit and by the end of the tour the wind was really rough. We got to see at least four minke whales on the way. They were all traveling pretty fast so it was hard to follow them. Two of them were moving together and they were surfacing at the same time tree or four times. Megan spotted two white-beaked dolphins in quite distance so the passengers didn't get a good look at them. By the end of the tour we stopped scanning and Bjarni our musician took over. He was really great.
-Katrín Björnsdóttir
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: In the evening we went out looking for the feeding minke whales that we saw in the earlier tour. We barely left the harbour when we spotted a big pod of white- beaked dolphins which were showing very interesting behaviour, including backslapping, tail slapping, jumping, just to name a few. At some point they seemed to be rounding up fish, while we watched them doing there very incredible acrobatic moves. We went on searching for minke whales, and indeed we found at least 3 different whales. Since those seemed to be very shy and elusive during our tour, we decided on enjoying the dolphins, that were still everywhere around the boat. Going back to the harbour was a bit rough, due to the easterly winds which drove many of our passengers into our comfortable lower deck, where we are serving hot drinks at our bar.
- Michaela Buchbauer
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: The wind had picked up quite a bit since the morning and it got more and more foggy during the tour. Nevertheless, we soon spotted two minke whales, but similar to this morning, they were rather elusive and hard to follow. While we were waiting for them to resurface, a small pod of 5+ harbour porpoises crossed our path at high speed. As we decided to move to an area where white-beaked dolphins had been spotted, another minke whale surfaced only 40 m away from our boat and we could it a few times next to us. Then, we also spotted the white-beaked dolphins. It was a rather large pod of around 30 individuals that were spread out in smaller groups all around our boat. They changed their directions very often and were followed by small flocks of birds, indicating that the animals were feeding. We could spent a long time with them and in the end also detected a blow of another minke whale in the same area. We didn't manage to spot the minke and soon had to return to the harbour, however, we had an amazing time with the dolphins.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúlan: In the afternoon we were traveling west in search of cetaceans. The sky was completely covered at this time while we were heading out of the Reykjavik harbour. It didn´t take long until we saw our first minke whale, followed by several more in the same area. They seemed to be feeding in shallow areas, not staying under water for a long time. One individual was identified as Spider, a regular visitor of the Faxaflói bay. The animals were moving around very unpredictable, leaving us with an estimation of 3-5 different individuals. We spent nearly a full hour admiring these marine mammals until we left looking for other cetaceans. On our way back we saw several dolphins jumping in the distance, giving us a last great view at the back of the boat.
- Michaela Buchbauer
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: This day started with nice sunshine and a clear look at the amazing landscape that surrounds Faxaflói as we went out from Reykjavík. We soon reached in area where several minke whales had been spotted earlier, and we were also able to spot two individuals. They didn't surface very regularly so we decided to move on and found a pod of 10+ white-beaked dolphins. They seemed to be resting as they were moving quite slowly and the group was close together. It was easy to follow and watch them and even taking pictures was not a challenge today. Since we also wanted to get a better look at a minke whale, we moved on after a while and sighted two more minke whales, before we headed back to the harbour.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The weather this morning was really good with sunshine and light wind from southeast. Conditions out in the bay were really good for whale watching and it didn´t take long until we found our first cetacean for the tour. A small pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises traveled passed us quickly, giving us very short but good views. After half an hour we spotted 2 minke whales feeding in an area, one individual was really small and surfaced fast. Both of the whales spent long time under surface, so we decided to travel back to an area where other whale watching boats had minke whales. The area proved to be very productive with very large flocks of arctic terns feeding and at least 4 minke whales feeding around the boat. In the same area a small pod of 3 white-beaked dolphins was also spotted and in the distance we could see at least two more minke whales surfacing +700 meters away. We spent the rest of the time around all of these cetaceans and even though they were elusive we got some great views at the end. A very pleasant morning tour out in Faxa bay!
- Marcus Bergström
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, arctic terns, puffins, common guillemots, manx shearwaters, razorbills, black- backed gulls, skuas and eider ducks.
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