Friday, 21 august

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Clearly we were lucky with the sea conditions on this tour. Wind was still blowing al little bit when we left Reykjavik, but we sailed on an almost mirror-sea, and with nice lights and colors in the landscape. Some light was shining through the clouds, blessing us with splendid views. The days has been great so far, so we started our journey with high hopes ! Quickly we encountered one pod of 3-4 white-beaked dolphins busy traveling. They were moving quite fast but still went out their way to check on us from closer. We then left them because we spotted a minke whale in the distance. Unfortunately, we could see it surfacing only one more time before it vanish from our sight. We decided then to look for the same humpback we saw earlier, only to find another pod of dolphins. This time there was between 6 and 8 of them ! We followed them a little bit and some even surfed in the waves at the back of the boat ! It was truly a joyful show, that was only made better by other dolphins jumping in the distance in the front of the boat. After this display stopped, we went further offshore, hoping to see other species, and met another minke whale. This individual was less shy, happily for us, and surfaced few times next to the boat, close enough to let us see the white patch on its pectoral fins. This one really made up for the disappointing first minke ! After that, it was time to go home so we sailed back toward Reykjavik. But on our way, we came across one more pod of white-beaked dolphins. There was a dozen of them, and they were very energetic ! Some even showed us leaps while the others were swimming in circle around the boat quickly. It was a very nice to end the tour before we reached the harbour after a quiet trip.

- Guillaume Calcagni

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: The sea conditions got improved a lot over the day and in this tour we only sailed on very smooth sea. even though it should have been easier for us to spot animals in these good conditions we were not able to find as much life out on the bay. While heading to the area where the humpback whale had been we saw one elusive minke whale and 3-4 harbour porpoises. When we got to the humpback whale it was traveling with us for about 30 minutes and what made it convenient for us was that it was traveling towards Reykjavík so we could stay with it for longer. when we were out of time we had to get leave the whale and sail faster towards land but than as soon as we had the whale behind us it gave us an amazing show with jumping out of the water! incredibly end to our day on the water.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had calmed down since the morning and also the swells. The light rain did still pour down on us, but not so bad. We first came across a pod of very elusive white-beaked dolphins, 5-6 individuals went for dives as soon we got close. We took the hint and continued on. In the huge flock of seabirds we had 2-3 minke whales feeding, giving us some short but good views. We soon headed north, in our search for something bigger. We made a short stop with some minkes and dolphins around another flock of birds, before heading further out. We finally found what we were looking for... the humpback whale. It was far out and we were running out of time but we wanted to show this animal to our passengers and they seemed very pleased with our decision. We arrived late back in harbour but it was so worth it!

- Marcus Bergström 

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: The weather was alright today, the swell was not high and even though it was cloudy it didn't rain so much during the tour. On the way out we spotted 2 minke whales that both were quite elusive and a pod of 3-4 harbour porpoises. We got news from other whale watching boats that they had seen a humpback whale so we decided to head to there. When we got closer to the whale we saw two pods of white beaked dolphins, each with 5-6 individuals. One of the dolphin groups were jumping around the humpback whale when we arrived but when we got closer the dolphins came towards us and we got an amazing look at them while swam all around our boat! We stayed with the humpback whale until we were running out of time. On our way back we saw our third minke whale and then a big group of dolphins, at least 15-20 individuals that followed us for nearly ten minutes on our way back to land. 

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This morning the weather was quite okey in the harbour, but when we got further out it was windy and some swells. The light rain that did short visits did'nt make it easier. When we got further out in Faxaflói we came across a huge flock of seabirds after some travel. We spent some time in the area with 1-2 minke whales feeding around us. The whales were very difficult to get a good look at and the swells made it even harder. We soon left because other boats were seeing dolphins, A pod of 7-8 white-beaked dolphins put on a great show coming close to the boat, and then... news of a blow! The humpback whale was found. Amazingly the dolphins followed us towards the whale and we could see 2-3 dolphins harassing the whale by swimming under and jumping over it! So cool to see the two species interacting with each other. We left with a smile on our faces!

- Marcus Bergström 

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.