THURSDAY, 30 JULY 2015

Tour at 20:30

Report from Hafsúlan: With great sadness we set off on my last midnight tour of the season. Conditions were perfect as we made our way on to ther bay with little wind and clear skies. Knowing a Humpback whale had been spotted by the boats, we went straight to where it was spotted. Onboard the scouts were having a great time and with them trained on the clock system we neared the humpback. It´s enormous blow leading us to it with ease. Once there this individual breached once, surfaced less than 5 metres to the boat several times, displayed its beautiful fluke countless times and gave everyone on board fantastic views. It was a hard choice between looking at the setting sun over snaefellsjokull or the humpback, both were amazing views. Upon entering the final hour on the return back to harbour we descended to listen Bjorni one last time. And as always he didn´t disappoint. Sad to see the end of the midnight tours. 

-Tommy Torrades

Tour at 17:00 

Report from Hafsúlan: Many times these words have been spoken before, but this time is extremely close to be the truth: this tour was incontestably the best tour of the season. We set sail in a more than tolerable weather, a little bit windy but sunny with calm sea. The wind was blowing from South-East, maybe it was the sign of what was about to come. About half an hour after we left from Reykjavik, our researcher Alberto spotted a big blow in the distance, 2 kilometers away. Without a doubt, it was a humpback whale, called Charlie. It took us some time to get close to this whale, but when we finally approached it, it began to display an incredible show to us. This humpback breached over 20 times ! At this point, it is shamelessly that we confess that we lost count, being to busy to being in awe in front of this whale. Time was not about counting or thinking anymore, but just to let yourself go into pure joy. Still having a lot of energy, this humpback then started to display pectoral fin, tail, and head slapping ! It was showing us everything it had in its behavior repertoire ! It kept on doing so for one hour of pure awesomeness. Times to times, it breached again, taking breaks from all the slapping. Needless to say, we were all thrilled. Having stayed for a long time, we decided to look for other species. We finally found a small pod of 3 - 4 white beaked dolphins and sighted one minke whale, but those cetaceans were more elusive, so we could not get close looks. Anyway, we still had a whale of a time. It is hoped that more tours like that will come !

- Guillaume Calcagni

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: We headed out into the area we thought the humpback might have been heading but did not locate it again. We headed towards a pair of minke whales that were feeding in the area. It's pretty rare to see these unsociable animals traveling and feeding along with a partner so we were pretty excited about seeing these two buddies together. Later on we spotted a single minke eating in an area filled with birdlife. The last part of the tour was quiet and romantic with the sun and clouds putting on a pretty shadow show on the mountains.

- Svala Jónsdóttir

Tour at 13:00 

Report from Hafsúlan: After a very amazing morning tour we went straight out into the direction where we had several encounters with marine mammals in the morning. It didn't take long until we managed to find our first animal, a minke whale. We followed this cetacean for a while until we found ourselves surrounded by minke whales and white- beaked dolphins. Especially two minke whales were a special treat, because they were travelling on the side of the boat, coming to the surface synchronized for most of the time, while we had several more minke whales coming up a bit further away. At some point we decided to leave these animals behind, looking for other individuals and species. This task was not a hard one, just a minute later we had another minke whale coming our way and another pod of dolphins jumping in the distance. We decided to have a look at the jumping white- beaked dolphins. After we managed to get a very nice look at those 6 dolphins we unfortunately had to head back home, since we were already running out of time. Estimating 6-10 minke whales and 10-11 white- beaked dolphins.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: We spotted a humpback whale! I don't know how I could ever confuse the Humpie for a minke but that's exactly what I did the first time it surfaced. It only added to my excitement when I realized that it was indeed a humpback that was chilling there besides our boat. It was very curious and came close to us many times before heading away from us. We decided to respect it's decision to move away and headed further into Faxaflói to locate some other animals. We managed to find 3 minke whales in 2 different locations. One of the minkes was very shy and kept itself a long way away but the other came very close and surfaced many times. It was a good start to the day in the summer sun and cold winds.

- Svala Jónsdóttir

Tour at 09:00 

Report from Hafsúlan: On this beautiful morning we went out of the harbour full of energy and expectations. We started out by spotting a blow in the distance and decided right away to head towards this animal. It turned out to be a humpback whale that was recently named Charlie after several encounters. We watched it for quiet a time and just as we thought about looking for another cetacean, the humpback whale was breaching infront of the boat! After the animal continued to travel we decided to look for another individual. Just as we turned the boat we spotted a minke whale not far away, which was followed by two more individuals. We tried to get a better look at some of them, which was not so easy because the animals were very shy. On our way back to Reykjaviks harbour we even managed to encounter a harbour porpoise, a quick look when it was traveling by.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, arctic terns, black-backed gulls, atlantic puffins, arctic skuas, common guillemots.