Sunday, 21 June 2015

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: On the midnight tour we wasted no time in the beginning, headed straight in the direction of the last location of the humpback whales seen on the 5 pm tour. We searched the location for almost an hour without any luck of finding the two whales. We decided to head further out in the bay and that proved successful. Our reward was 4 minke whales in a large area. While we were looking at one individual we noticed splashes in the distance. In the binoculars it proved to be a pod of white-beaked dolphins jumping! Unfortunately we were not able to catch up with the dolphins because they were to far away. We started sailing towards the harbour in the beautiful midnight sun on this longest day of the year, listening to the live music onboard the boat.

- Marcus Bergström      

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We sailed out on the bay in beautiful weather and were ready for traveling for a good amount of time until seeing something because the animals we saw on the previous tours were far out on the bay. This time we really got lucky! we had not sailed for long until we saw a minke whale that seemed very relaxed traveling slowly. We had only followed that minke for few minutes when we noticed a pod of 4 white beaked dolphins and soon we saw another pod with 6 individuals! these dolphins were just wonderful to follow, they kept slow speed and we saw these two groups circling each other until they mixed and became one. This big pod of dolphins often came very close to the boat and few times went under it. After following the dolphins for a good time we saw the minke whale again. This time we spent longer time with it and were able to get a good look at it. On the way back we got so lucky to find two humpback whales! They stayed close to each other and both showed us there flukes few times! what a great tour!

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: The wind had increased to a light breeze, but it was still perfect conditions when we head out on the 2 o´clock tour. With us on the boat we had researcher that were going to take water samples from the ocean. This is something that is being done globally on the 21st of July, giving a glimpse on how the worlds oceans are doing. They really chose the right boat to do this on and we gladly stopped the boat for a couple of minutes to take the water samples. After this we headed further out and soon we spotted our first cetacean. 4-5 minke whales were busy feeding in an area with a lot of arctic tern. We spent a long time in the area and got good views of the whales that surfaced a couple of times really close to our boat. We could see the white stripes over the flippers on several occasions. When we were heading back the guide spotted jumping dolphins in the distance and what a show they put on for us when we got closer! Jumping and leaping out of the water a large pod of 15+ white-beaked dolphins traveled passed us, a smaller pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins was also present. Surrounding us with these beautiful animals! Jumping dolphins and sunshine on a calm sea, a perfect ending to this tour!   

- Marcus Bergström

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Just like on the morning tour the weather was almost perfect with sunshine and calm seas making our voyage extremely pleasant. This tour was also like in the morning because we had to sail for very far and for a long time before we found the animals we wanted to see. After an hour of sailing there was a large group of birds spotted feeding so we decided to investigate because there may be fish there, this turned out to be a great idea because in this area there were 3-4 minke whales! They were all within 500m and the closest was coming to within 50m of the boat at times, as these whales were feeding they were surfacing in the same areas mostly making sure no passengers missed a thing. After some time with the whales we headed in search of dolphins and it only took us another 15 minutes to find them, a two pods of white-beaked dolphins totalling 8-9 individuals. These were very nice dolphins that were happy to be very near the boat and were swimming alongside us for a while. As we sailed back to the city we even saw 2 more minke whales! A great afternoon sail on the longest day of the year!

- Jack Ball

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: The perfect weather and sea conditions from the morning tour was still present when we sailed out from the harbour. The whale watching boats that left on the morning tour were seeing minke whales in an area about one hour sailing from the harbour. On our way there we had a short encounter with 2-3 harbour porpoises and flocks of feeding arctic terns, but no larger cetaceans. That was completely fine because when we arrived to the other area we were surrounded by minke whales! 7-8 minke whales were feeding in a large area together with several pods of white-beaked dolphins, total 30-40 individuals. We could see the dolphins jumping in the distance before we got up close, when they were closer they had stopped jumping but showed themselves very nicely to us. We had also several close encounters with the minke whales when they surfaced within 100 meters from our boat. Whales, dolphins and sunshine characterized this tour!   

- Marcus Bergström 

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We had the perfect whale watching weather and sea conditions today, as we went out from Reykjavík. It took a while on this tour, until we finally spotted cetaceans. However, as soon as we spotted jumping dolphins in some distance to as and got closer to them, we had several pods of white-beaked dolphins all around us (total 30-40 individuals). They were leaping and jumping out of the water and traveling next to us and went underneath our boat a few times. We were surrounded by dolphins for almost an hour, and in the end we also spotted 3 minke whales feeding in the same area. One was a little further away, but we got a good look at two of them, while we still had dolphins around as. An amazing tour! 

- Hanna Michel 

Bird species seen on today's tour include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, manx shearwaters eider ducks, puffins, common guillemots, razorbills, arctic terns, and puffins.