Tuesday, 25 August 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: On our last tour of the day we decided to go straight out west to the humpback whale Þröstur that has been staying in the Faxaflói bay. As on the other tours, we found it rather quick after we reached it's estimated location. We watched it for quiet a long time, tail lob and lunge feeding were some of the behaviors it showed us during our stay. We also had several minke whales feeding in the same area where the humpback whale was feeding, it was a very impressive show. We also saw 6-10 different individuals of minke whales as well as 1-2 different pods of dolphins, around 4-9 individuals. Unfortunately the white- beaked dolphins were behaving very elusive. During this amazing tour we didn't just have incredible encounters with whales, we also had the most incredible weather and sunset, which our passengers enjoyed on our smooth ride back to the harbour.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 14:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Somehow we´ve been treated to some amazing weather. After our amazing tour this morning our expectations and hopes were so high. We steamed directly out to the humpback in the bay. It seemed like no time at all until we were surrounded by massive flocks of birds, 4 minke whales and a humpback whale called "Þröstur". They were all busy feeding and lunging really close to the boat. We spent the next 45 minutes surrounded by these beautiful animals. Eventually we had to make our way back in to the harbour but what an awesome tour! 

-Tommy Torrades 

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: the weather had not changed much so the conditions for spotting cetaceans were still perfect. The tour started with a pod of 4-5 white beaked dolphins that we followed for a short time until we spotted a blow about 600 meters away. We turned around to find the animal that made the blow, when we got closer we saw two minke whales but we had not even stopped for longer than a minute before we saw a humpback whale! That was the same humpback that we saw on the morning tour so it had clearly traveled a long distance as it was much closer to land this time. It was incredible to follow the humpback while it was feeding with flocks of birds and two minke whales around it. After a good time in that area we wanted to go further out, we had only just turned the boat around when we saw breaching dolphins a head of us! We followed these dolphins for about 15 minutes, we saw them leaping, breaching and some of them even started to bow ride. Minke whales seemed to be everywhere in the bay and in total we saw 5-6 minke whales on the tour.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 10:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Finally some sun and some warmth ! After days of rain and wind that felt like weeks, we got treated with excellent temperatures. Absolutely grateful about how much we were blessed, we set sail in a good mood. Quickly we spotted a pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins. They allowed quite nice looks but we did not stayed for long with them as we heard news from other species. After a long time traveling further offshore we finally found a humpback whale. It was "þröstur" again, resting and surfacing lazily. Because of its lack of motion, it was really easy to follow him. Then he got a boost of energy and suddenly breached right in the front of the boat ! It was an impressive leap where the whale took over 60% of its body out of the water. Having to refuel after this exercise, the humpback began to feed. In this time we surrounded by huge flocks of sea birds, but also by a lot of minke whales. There was about 7 of them surfacing all around the boat, more or less close to us. So it was a whale festival ! A light rain greeted us when we headed back to Reykjavik, but nothing could harm our joy after such a good trip.

- Guillaume Calcagni

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: On this sunny morning we left the harbour optimistic in search of cetaceans. We started traveling west right away, towards an area where we had a lot of luck with marine mammals in the last days. After about half an hour drive we spotted our first animal, which was a minke whale. During this nice encounter we continued to find minke whales everywhere around the boat. While we enjoyed the large amount of minke whales close by we decided to keep on moving to look for other species. Indeed we were lucky, we found our regular humpback whale that we keep seeing a lot in the last weeks. While all our encounters we also spotted two pods of white- beaked dolphins. We enjoyed all the animals as long as we could until we had to turn around to go back to Reykjavik. Estimating 10-12 different minke whales.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Birds seen on todays tour: kittiwake, atlantic puffin, arctic tern, arctic skua, eider duck, black-backed gull, northern gannets, northern fulmars, manx shearwaters, common guillemots, razorbills, phalaropes.