Saturday, 15 August 2015

tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: The calm seas continued into our last tour of the day with another tour of flat oceans. Though because Icelandic weather is rarely perfect we had to endure a lot of rain this afternoon, it is a good job the whales are wet enough already so that they don´t mind a bit of rain. Just like on the previous tour this one started with a pod of 10 white-beaked dolphins which were excellent to watch as they were playing with the boat and swimming under and around our boat. We got to spend a long time with these dolphins and even later on we found several more pods of dolphins in the distance. As we wanted to see something bigger too we sailed on and found two minke whales that were both feeding along with flocks of thousands of birds. There was a feast going on and it meant that the whales were constantly surfacing in areas close to the boat. As sometimes minkes can be elusive this was a nice treat to see them so well. With two great species seen and a beautiful flat ocean this was a really nice tour for our passengers.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 14:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We rushed out of the harbour because we wanted to get a glimpse of the rescue of Nettie the humpback whale. It took us 30 minutes to get to it and were really fortunate that Nettie surfaced only 10 metres from the boat! An awesome experience for those passengers caught in the blow. We left the rescue team to it and continued on our way.Only about 5 minutes later we came upon some mating white beaked dolphins. Not long after seeing the dolphins we found a second humpback. It was resting near the surface after feeding so much. Coming up really close to us. We then had a minke whale join the humpback. Another awesome tour. 

-Tommy Torrades

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: We had the best sea conditions we have had in many weeks this afternoon, a flat sea with barely any wind! Such a treat after many windy days here in the bay. These kind of conditions mean sighting animals becomes a lot easier and this meant we had a really nice and successful tour. We started off with the white-beaked dolphins and saw two pods of these animals at first. There was around 15 in these two pods, the biggest one had 10 and was the best pod to watch as they were interacting with our boat. Swimming underneath us many times and swimming around the edges of us giving us perfect views of them. We soon moved on and found one of two humpback whales. The first was the entangled whale which was in the middle of a rescue procedure, we kept our distance so to aid this operation but it was a pleasure to witness this act of human kindness to this whale. #freenettie! We moved on to the second humpback and were able to be get very close and have a great look at the lifting of the tail and calm movement near the boat that this humpback gave us. Some fantastic sightings and excellent weather made this a really nice tour that we hope to replicate for many days to come.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 10:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We had perfect whale watching weather as we made our way out in to Faxaflói bay. Although we wanted to see many animals, our main focus was to locate the humpback called Nettie. The reason was there was a rescue mission being undertaken by us in conjunction with IFAW. Our other boat Elding had been out in the bay since 8 o'clock. We had only left the port before spotting a pod of 6 white beaked dolphins. We didn´t stay but continued our journey in to the bay in search of larger animals. We got caught in a nice shower of rain with some brave passengers staying out with me. They were soon rewarded as we spotted Nettie the elusive humpback. We were able to stay next to Nettie and watched the beautiful animal fluke a few times, whilst we waited for the rescue boats to arrive. Once they were on station we left them to it and began our way back when we spotted a minke whale. Awesome a three species tour!

- Tommy Torrades

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: The wind had calmed down a lot since the last days making the sea conditions pretty good for whale watching today. So we headed out in to Faxaflói and soon came across a pod of about 3 white-beaked dolphins. However, we only got a short look at them before they disappeared. We moved on into an area where a humpback whale had been spotted earlier but we didn't find any sign of this animal. So, we turned around and soon spotted a large blow in some distance. This could only be the blow of a humpback whale! As we got closer, we finally got to see the animal itself lifting its fluke out of the water every time it was going for a deep dive. It was the humpback we call Þröstur going for long dives Inbetween the surface sequences. After we spent some time with it, we moved on to look for another pod of dolphins that would be not as shy as the first pod we spotted. It only took a few minutes until we found a pod of about 5-6 white-beaked dolphins that were coming closer to us, swimming underneath our boat and checking us out. Great ending for the tour!

- Hanna Michel 

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern fulmars, northern gannets, kittiwakes, Arctic skuas, Atlantic puffins, common guillemots, lesser black-backed gulls and manx shearwaters.