TUESDAY, 23 JUNE 2015

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: Conditions were perfect this evening as we sailed out from Reykjavik harbour and onto Faxa bay. Quite soon we spotted the first cetaceans of the tour which were some Harbour porpoises. We caught a quick glimpse of them as they swam past and would see quite a few more as our tour went on. Continuing on from our quick stop with the harbour porpoises, alert passengers soon spotted large dorsal fins in the distance and as we closed in we saw a pod of 4-5 White-beaked dolphins.  It was very fun to see these individuals though they looked like they had a calf with them so they kept a 100m distance from the boat. We then sailed on for about half an hour and got to the best part of our tour. We came upon 6-8 Minke whales feeding along with a host of birds. We simply shut of the engines and enjoyed the tranquility of nature at work in the midnight sun. A beautiful experience and we headed back to Reykjavik harbour with a smile on our faces.

-Ívar Elí

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Clouds joined the party on this tour, but we still enjoyed an almost mirror sea. Only about 20 minutes after our departure, we had the surprise to find a group of 10-12 white-beaked dolphins very close to Reykjavik. The pod was very calm, surfacing a lot and moving slowly, the animals were probably resting. Still they came very close to us, passing beneath the boat two times. It was very pleasant to see their white patterns underwater, as they stayed close to the surface. We also had magical moments when the whole pod surfaced together ! After a good time looking at them, we went further offshore to look for minke whales, only to find more white-beaked dolphins ! We met another pod of 5-7 individuals, with two calves, that even showed us some impressive leaps. Shortly after that, we found several minke whales (5-10 individuals). It was hard to tell how many they were, as they were surfacing all around the boat in far distances. One of them approached us very closely, 20-30 meters away from the boat, allowing us to hear its powerful blow and take a good look at its dorsal fin. Following this individual we spotted additional minke whales and white-beaked dolphins together ! All of this was displayed in a splendid panorama, mixing blue, gray and whites colors on the landscape. An airplane or perfume commercial could have been shot there ! Our awe did not stop there, as on the way back more dolphins and minke whales showed up in the surroundings. What a tour !

- Guillaume Calcagni

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: This afternoon tour started rather quick, because a very observing passenger spotted an animal just as we were leaving the Reykjavik area. It turned out to be a humpback whale traveling and feeding very close to the harbour. Everybody got very excited and so we stayed for a while to see it surface several times, watching it lifting out it's large incredible fluke, just as it was going for multiple dives. We even managed to spot the animal again in the end of our tour. After our first encounter with this humpback whale we went on looking for other cetaceans. This didn't take long, as we encountered a large pod of white- beaked dolphins, which appeared to be very calm. Especially the juvenile animals and calves seemed to be very interesting in our boat, going from side to side many times. At some point we wanted to go on and spot other marine mammals, in that moment, as we were turning the boat, a minke whale came up 300 meters away from the boat. During the rest of our tour we encountered several more animals, also 3-5 harbour porpoises on our way back to the harbour. With this we completed all the four main species we tend to see in the Faxaflói bay during the summer months, leaving our passengers as well as the crew with an long lasting experience. Estimating 15-20  white- beaked dolphins and around 4-6 minke whales.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We headed out in great weather, the sun warmed us up at the pier and the clouds welcomed us further out. When we entered the main whale spotting are we spotted at the same time a minke whale to our right and a small pod of white beaked dolphins to our left. We decided to start with the dolphins since they were heading towards the area where the minke was and work our way slowly to the minke. There we stayed until we heard a report from Elding that they'd spotted a humpback whale on their way out from the docks. We headed towards them and when we caught up with them they pointed us in the right direction and left so as not to disturb the animal to much. The humpback was very agile and heading out of the bay doing screws and zig-zags along the way. This trip received a huge round of applause and happy faces on the way back to harbour.

- Svala Jónsdóttir

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: What a fantastic tour! The weather was simply gorgeous, with the sun shining and a mirror like sea we headed out in to the bay. We had gotten only 10 minutes from the port when right beside us surfaced a harbour porpoise, like all harbour porpoises it was very shy but some passengers managed a look. Still a great start as only 2 minutes later we spotted our first of 6 or 7 minke whales. This was a very enthusiastic individual and was lunge feeding really close to the boat and amazingly was lifting most its body out of the water. Really astounding, we then had  5 minkes all around the boat in a 700 meters radius so the passengers were spoilt for choice. We spent about an hour and half with these individuals watching them lunging, blowing and diving. We moved north and that is when came across a pod of 8 white beaked dolphins. They were probably sleeping as they continued in a lazy manner without changing course much. But they approached the boat quite closely enabling all the passengers to get a great look. It was at this time we start to head back to Reykjavik, but along the way we spotted more minkes and some more harbour porpoises. There was actually too much to see!

-Tommy Torrades

Tour at 9:00

Report from Hafsúlan: On this very beautiful morning we went out from the harbour in search of cetaceans. The sea was mostly mirror flat, there was basically no wind, a very good weather to go whale watching. And indeed this tour turned out to be a good one, starting off with several white- beaked dolphins. After a short while with the dolphin we started moving again to encounter bigger cetaceans. In less then a minute, there it was, a minke whale just on the side of the boat. Looking around the area while the whale was on a dive, we realized that we were surrounded by minke whales. We turned off our engines to get an even better experience with these amazing mammals. We spent quite a long time enjoying them, seeing them surface all around the boat. When we were heading back to the harbour, even more minke whales appeared as well as white- beaked dolphins and a pod of around 5 harbour porpoises. Estimating 10-15 individual minke whales as well as around 15 different white- beaked dolphins.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Bird species seen on today's tour include: arctic terns, puffins, common guillemots, black-backed seagulls, northern fulmars, northern gannets, arctic skuas, eider ducks.