Thursday, 29 October 2015

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: We had high hopes for this tour as the morning was so good. We journeyed out to the area we saw the minke whales this morning, about an hour sailing away. After about 40 minutes passengers at the back of the boat saw something so we turned around and traveled a little in the direction they were pointing, Unfortunately, what ever it was, it did not want to show up again. We decided to continue further offshore and once in the area we searched and searched but with no luck. The seabirds kept us company though and the diversity of species was incredible. Time was running out and we had to make our way home, the weather changed with increased wind and hard rain. It was fun but not that comfortable. Those that dressed appropriately stayed with me on the outside top deck and others enjoyed the warmer saloons. The colours in the sky were beautiful and sun was shining over Reykjavik. We gave our passengers complimentary tickets and hopefully they will have a better and more cetacean productive tour next time. 

-Megan Whittaker

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: We headed out in to Faxaflói from Reykjavík on this windy morning. The sea today was pretty agitated with lots of waves but there was not much swell so that the sailing was still comfortable. After a bit more than an hour our Captain Jon spotted a blow, and so we turned the boat and searched in that area for the animal. A few minutes later we saw a few more blows and then finally got to see a minke whale coming high up in the waves. It was going very fast but it stayed in the same areas so that it wasn't too difficult to keep track of it. Shortly after we found the first minke, we noticed a second minke whale even closer to us. They even surfaced at the same time a few times only about 100 m away from us, and as we waited patiently, we had one of them surfacing only about 20 m away from our boat. It was amazing to see two minkes together as they are usually solitary animals. However, it may have been the food bringing both of them in the same area. We got to spend a while with these whales, before we started our way back to the harbour. 

- Hanna Michel

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar (+ blue fulmar), kittiwakes, common guillemots, sooty shearwaters, Iceland gulls, eider ducks, glaucous gulls and black-backed gulls.