Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: The weather was rough, but passengers were warned to the best of our abilities offering free seasickness tablets and overalls but they were an adventurous lot and it did not deter them. We went out in search of Þröstur and spotted a fast surfacing minke whale and and 2 pods of white beaked dolphins. At least 4-6 dolphins in the first and 3-4 in the second. They were incredible leaping out of the water heading right for us, then started bow riding and passenger watching. We also found ourselves in the area where there were thousands upon thousands of seabirds, puffins, kittiwakes, black-backed gulls, skuas, arctic terns, northern gannets, fulmars. A really productive area with so much to see even another 2-3 minke whales that only surfaced once so that the passengers could´t see it. Unfortunately Þröstur wasn´t anywhere to be found so we were quite disappointed but spirits where still high but faces a bit green by the end of the tour. The Icelandic roller coaster, fun for some not so much for others.
-Megan Whittaker
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The weather took a swift turn for the worst. But we had everyone wrapped up and seasickness tablets offered. On track to see the humpback whale we spotted it and a pod of 4 white beaked dolphins right beside the animal trying to catch the leftovers. This humpback is an individual named "Þröstur" and he began lunging and rolling. We were treated to a minke whale joining the feeding frenzy too. Eventually we had to make our way back to the harbour. A round of applause to those passengers who had to survive the wild conditions on the way back.
-Tommy Torrades
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: The tour was quite shaky this afternoon but as it was coming in from the northeast, it wasn´t so bad on the way out but a little shaky on the way back but it seemed that most our passengers enjoyed it. We saw 4 species on this tour; humpback whale, minke whale, white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises. Þröstur the humpback was was the star of the show, he breached twice, tail lobbed once, did some incredible surface feeding and brought his/her tail up many times for all to see. We saw maybe 3-4 scattered minke whales, popping up here and there throughout the tour and 2 large pods of dolphins, maybe 10-15 animals total.The porpoises were more tricky and most passengers did not spot these. Lots of puffin still, terns, seagulls, gannets and more. A great but bumpy tour.
-Megan Whittaker
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The calm waters and sunny weather we had in the harbour hid the fact that some bad weather is coming in, so we made our way in to the bay as fast as possible. We knew that "Þröstur" the humpback was in the area so we had our heading. On the way out a pod of 3 white beaked dolphins appeared to our side and approached us to play with the boat and bow ride. Really cool to see! Then as we continued to make our way out we spotted 2 of our 5 minke whales of the trip. Eventually we came upon the humpback whale and were treated to him coming really close to us. We stayed with him and the other minke whales until we ran out of time. Our way back was a little rough but kudos to the passengers who remained happy throughout the trip.
-Tommy Torrades
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: We set sails this morning with the warm autumn breeze coming our way and pretty good sea conditions. We had to sail for a while before we saw our first blow, pretty far out. It was captain Gulli who spotted the first blow but it was not an easy animal to spot again, we really had to do our best to trying spot it. But fortunately we had some really good spotters on board today which saw what seemed to be a minke whale from their description. But again we weren't able to spot it again. After some time of sailing we all saw a really big blow in front of us and we were pretty certain that was a humpback whale. In this case we were right because when we came closer we saw that this was Þröstur, our very good humpback friend that we have been seeing in the bay for almost two months now. Really happy to see Þröstur again and he showed off his beautiful tail so everybody on board could see. We stayed a while with Þröstur and then headed back in the hope of seeing some minke whales or dolphins on the way back. The luck was on our side because we encountered at least three minke whales on the way back, one of them being really small. That individual actually came really close to the boat about two times so most of the passengers on board got a pretty good look at it. But since we were running out of time we couldn't stay long with these animal but still a very nice ending to the tour.
- Katrín Björnsdóttir
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 and razorbills.
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