Monday, 21 December 2015

Tour at 13:00: RUNNING

We are sailing out today from the Reykjavik Old Harbor. We are expecting an Eastern wind between 7 and 10 m/s with some swell and some precipitation.

Sightings: Even though we had a full overcast and a light rain for most part of the tour the weather and sea conditions could not have been better for spotting cetaceans. The sea was all flat and the surface bright when they reflected the color of the clouds. We spotted a huge flock of various species of birds far out on the bay and there we found our first species, 12-14 harbour porpoises. The porpoises seemed to be feeding in an area. We watched them for about 20 minutes but then our first mate GulliS spotted a blow further out. This was a blow from a humpback whale that we followed for about 30 minutes. The whale spent quite a long time under water between surfacing and had often travelled a long distance before we spotted it again. Few times we got really good look at it when it surfaced within 100 meters away and we once got to see the fluke when it went for a dive. 

-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir 

Birds seen on the tour: Northern fulmar, northern ganntes, glaucous gulls, iceland gulls, greater black backed gulls, kittiwakes, common gullemots, shags and eider ducks.