Saturday, 09 January 2016

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. We predict a mild wind from the east and some swell.

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey and Elding: The weekend and calm weather conditions brought everyone out and about today. So many lovely passengers flooded to our door to do a whale watching tour that we had to take out two of our big vessels. Eldey has a max. capasity of 200 people and Elding 144. There was a stunning scenery with the snow capped mountains and sunrising/setting and calm wind on the way out, however on the way back it was very cold as then we headed into the wind, our passengers then made use of the warm inside saloons. Eldey got a quick glimpse of a harbour porpoise and got word from Elding that they spotted 3-4 white-beaked dolphins. We headed that way but were unfortunetly unsuccessful in spotting them ourselves. This happened twice but the dolphins were difficult to follow and obviously was not in the mood. Both boats gave our complimentary tickets to our passengers in the hope they will see more next time the come. Eldey saw also one pod of 4-5 harbour porpoises but they too were a little elusive. It was quite strange that we didn´t see more however as the birdlife was both abundant and diverse. Many flocks out in the bay. A birders paradise. 

- Megan Whittaker and Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir. 

Birds seen on today´s tour include; common guillemots, razorbills, black-backed gulls, iceland gulls, glaucous gulls, kittiwakes, northern gannets, northern fulmars, long-tailed ducks, eider ducks, shags, cormorants.