Thursday, 3 September 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: Still some western wind and high swells when we headed out for the evening tour. A mist lowered the visibility to only a couple of hundred meters close to the coast. When we got further out it luckily cleared and we could start searching for cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). We spotted two blows infront of us after a while. It turned out to be a minke whale feeding under a flock of birds. The other blow belonged to a humpback, probably the same individual as on the 13-tour. Unfortunately only the guide saw the animal in some distance because when we got closer it was nowhere to be seen. A small pod of 3 white-beaked dolphins was seen just before the whales but we didn´t slow down for them. The tour continued with several minke whales 3-4 individuals but it was hard to get good views of the them because of the swells. Just before we had to start heading back we spotted more dolphins and they were jumping! We got a great show from these dolphins as they were playing with the boat coming right underneath us. They even followed us for a while when we headed back, bow-riding in the front. A very nice ending to this tour.

- Marcus Bergström  

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: After a pretty bumpy morning tour, the wind luckily had calmed down a lot. So the tour was still rocking a bit but it was still rather comfortable. After about an hour we saw a first pod of 7-8 white-beaked dolphins. The dolphins really seemed to be in a good mood today, they were curious, coming closer to us and swimming underneath our boat, bow-riding and leaping in front of us. As we moved on, we quickly came across another pod of fun dolphins (9-11 individuals), also checking us out, while we also noticed a few minke whales around us. We saw 3-4 around us and most of them seemed to be feeding as they were lunging forward and rolling over creating big splashes. Then we saw another big blow and dolphins jumping in some distance. We decided to approach these animals thinking it was another minke whale; however, it turned out to be a humpback whale together with a group of 5-6 white-beaked dolphins. Like the minkes, the humpback was also feeding and we got to see some incredible lunging when it engulfed a large amount of water filled with sand eels. After a while, the humpback got more sneaky and we only saw it a couple of more times before it finally disappeared. But on the way back to the harbour we also saw 2-3 more minke whales. 

- Hanna Michel 

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: This misty morning we sailed out from Reykjavík in pretty harsh sea conditions. The winds were strong and there were a lot of white caps but we still manage to spot our first animals pretty early on. We spotted a pod of white-beaked dolphins and a pretty big one, this pod probably included 10-12 individuals. These dolphins were absolutely amazing. Five individuals stayed in the front of the boat for a long time, bowriding and leaping only about 5 meters from the boat and also swimming under the boat and surfacing on both sides so most passengers could see them. Then more dolphins showed up and put on a show for us as well a little bit further away as they were breaching and leaping for quite some time. Unfortunately we didn't manage to encounter other species on this tour but the dolphins totally made up for that.

- Katrín Björnsdóttir

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