Tour at 17:00
Report from Elding: The clouds covered completely the Faxaflói sky. The morning breeze turned into a chilly strong wind and we started to feel the waves rocking our boat more and more as we distanced from the harbour. About one hour after our departure, we glimpsed three white-beaked dolphins out of nowhere, just in front of the boat, but they disappeared just as they show up. We spend one more hour trying to locate any other cetaceans without any luck. Another whale watching boat told us that they spotted a humpback whale, so we traveled towards their direction. In our way we also glimpsed a small pod of harbour porpoises swimming along the direction of out boat, but they also disappeared really fast. - just as these sneaky animals tend to do! Unfortunately, we only managed to observe a couple of surfaces of the humpback whale, and they were actually really far away from us. The time was over and we had to return to the harbour, but we offered our customers complementary tickets, so they will be able to accompany us in another whale watching tour.
-Alberto
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: The wind had calmed down quite a lot so the water was not too choppy and despite the fact that it was still overcast the views of the mountain ranges surrounding the bay were very clear and beautiful. We had not sailed out for ten minutes yet when we spotted two humpback whales! The two humpbacks were swimming closely together and we got amazing views of their flukes when they came close to the boat. An incredible encounter so close to the harbour. We left the animals to see if we could find more wildlife further out in the bay, when we had sailed for half an hour a passenger spotted a minke whale. While looking for the minke we spotted two more humpback whales, these animals were quite elusive and we lost them quickly. The minke whale however came close to us and the researchers noticed it was the individual named spider, when we were still with spider another minke whale was seen not to far from us. This encounter was fantastic with so much wildlife everywhere, not only whales but also many different bird species. Because we ran out of time we had to leave the animals but on our way back we got another great treat, a group of about 5 Atlantic white beaked dolphins that came very close to the boat so we were able to see them underwater. What an amazing tour with many great encounters!
-Anouk
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: As we were expecting rough conditions and cold temperatures out in Faxa Bay, we were pleasantly surprised to find a calm sea, an excellent visibility and merciful temperatures when we set sail. Plus, there was so much life in the bay ! We could spot a variety of interesting birds, and a lot of tjem were feeding. Needless to say, this blessing motivated the whole crew and it was only a matter of time before we encountered our first whale of this tour: a humpack whale ! This individual seemed relaxed and was absolutely not minding us. It was taking a lot of deep dives but surfaced quickly everytime, allowing us to have numerous looks at its dorsal fin. It was not moving over great distances so following it was a piece of cake. At some point during our sighting of this humpback, a minke whale surfaced smoothly several time in the surroundings, adding a nice bonus to this encounter. The climax of this tour would be the moment when a second humpback whale surfaced right where the first one went for a deep dive. This magical humpback seemed to come out of nowhere ! We could clearly see the differences between the flukes if those two different individuals, it is hoped that it was insightful for the passengers. Sadly enough, too soon after that it was time to go back to the harbour. One the way back a small pod of 2 - 3 harbour porpoises surfaced in front of the boat one time, to never appear again. Of course, the nice memories of the humpback and the smooth sailing eased a lot this slight disapointment. A satisfying morning on the bay !
- Guillaume Calcagni
Bird species seen on today's tour include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, greater black backed gull, artic skua, common guillemot, atlantic puffin, arctic tern, cormorant and eider ducks.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. The forecast is good for the day and the wind is going to slow down according to that. There could be some movement on the boat.
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