MONDAY, 6 JUNE 2016

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out on this beautiful day from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. There is little to no wind and the sun is shining.

Tour at 17:00

Report from Elding: We left the harbour of Reykjavik with real high hopes, since the other tours of the morning and afternoon had been watching real impressive sightings. About 40 minutes after our departure we stopped our engines as a small pod of 4-6 white beaked dolphins crossed our path, but they were quite elusive and we didn't manage to saw them more times so we continued our way towards the area we spotted some whales previously in the afternoon. We came across 2 minke whales, but we only manage to saw them surfacing for a few minutes, and then they also disappeared. At the end we encountered, at last, our first humpback whale! It was surfacing quietly, going up and down into deep dives. But also this cetacean didn't stayed for too long. We stood there for some minutes, waiting and waiting, till we found in the horizon a massive splash! It was pretty far away though, but it certainly belonged to a really big animal! We sailed towards it, really excited, when we did manage to discern in the distance one of the outstanding unmistakable white flippers of another humpback whale! As we approached, we saw how this whale was really in a playful state, as it was slapping again and again the surface of the water with the same pectoral fin, and even rolling once in a while. When we got close to it, the whale disappeared for a little, but just to increase enough our expectations! The next thing we saw was this whale breaching just in front of us for several times! It was a really impressive and unique spectacle, and we felt really proud and happy to be able to share this magnificent view with all of the passengers of this tour!

Alberto Alejandro

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: The second afternoon tour started with a breaching humpback whale about 50 min after leaving Reykjavík´s Old Harbour. It was a few hundred meters away from us but still spectacular to see! We soon got closer and saw it coming towards us, diving underneath our boat and coming up on the other side. However, then the humpback whale decided to go for quite long dives so that we decided to leave it to itself and look for something else. As we heard from another whale watching boat, there was another humpback whale around and so we went to that area. On the way we saw our first minke whale. It came up twice before disappearing again and we could see big blows from another humpback whale. This was a really cool individual – it was busy feeding and kept surfacing all around us followed by a flock of birds. It stayed in the area and once came up just a meter from the boat – absolutely stunning! While watching this hungry humpie we also saw 3-4 minke whales around is, maybe also feeding. We watched these animals for a good while until we were running out of time and started heading back with a couple of harbor porpoises crossing our path.

Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00

For the second trip of the day we were again blessed with sunshine, calm sea and a little wind. An hour into the trip we saw 4 harbour porpoise about 100 meters. One of them swam really close to the boat so we were able to see it clearly beneath the surface of the water. Soon after we then saw a humpback whale doing an inverted tail slap. We watched it take a number of deep dives revealing it flukes. Whilst we were watching the humpback whale a minke whale suddenly surfaced on the other side of the boat just 50m away. It was difficult to know where to look. In the distance we saw splashes about 1km away. It was clearly dolphins. As we got closer to them we saw a few jump high out of the water. Fantastic! There were 4 white beaked dolphins. They treated us to some good views as they swam close to boat. A little while later another 2 harbour porpoise swam just ahead of the boat. Another humpback appeared about 40 minutes after we saw the first one. It kept surfacing and resting close to the surface. It then took a deep dive where it stayed under the water for several minutes. Suddenly, out of nowhere, one of the researchers shouted out "Whoah! It just breached" I turned only to see a massive splash. I don´t know if any of the passengers were able to see it, I hope so. It was one of those situations when you had to be looking in the right place at the right time. We were then treated to another sighting of a single minke whale. It was time to head back to the harbour. Another fantastic trip on a beautiful day!

- Julia Benson

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: We sailed out on a beautifully and sunny morning where the little breeze cooled us down while we were enjoying the view of Reykjavik and the surroundings from the Faxa Bay. Half an hour after we left the port we came across 5 harbour porpoises which just showed up in front of the boat and went along its side giving us the chance to see them closer, it’s always great to see these guys. We kept going out for 5 more minutes when we saw a blow of a humpback whale. Once we came closer we could even see the fluke of the animal before it went for a deeper dive. While we were waiting for the animal to be back at the surface again, there were at least 4 minke whales around in the same area. That was a good encounter with a lot of minkes, some of them came closer to the boat and we could take a better look at them. Suddenly, about 1km in front of the boat we saw a big splash on the water and we started to speed up. Few seconds later we could see that it was a breach of a humpback whale because it kept doing it for 10 more times, that was amazing! Once we got closer the humpback was slapping the flippers against the water for some seconds and then it went for a deeper dive showing us the beautiful fluke. We decided to move away to another area and we ended up seeing about 6 more minke whales, again some of them closer than others, but definitely it was an incredible morning full of life in the Bay. On our way back to the harbour we could see again a group of 3-4 little porpoises and even get some pictures of them as the came closer to the boat to checked us out!

- Alejandro Garcia

Tour at 9:00

What a beautiful start to the day and a great day for being out on the water. The sun was shining, there was little wind and the sea was calm, providing fantastic conditions for spotting whales,dolphins and porpoises. The first sighting was about 6 white-beaked dolphins about 100m from the boat. We then saw the blow of a minke whale in the distance and lots of bird activity. This was followed by the sighting of another minke whale and another. In total we saw 6 of them. Then 4 harbour porpoises appeared just ahead of the boat and in the distance. We were surrounded! Then to add to the excitement the unmistakable blow of a humpback whale appeared in the distance. It appeared to be heading our way so we waited patiently for it to make its way to the ship. Fortunately it did and we were treated to some close views of it. A second humpback whale appeared. Incredible! We didn´t know where to look with so much going on. Later on we treated to another sighting of a humpback whale followed by another 6 harbour porpoise and 5 white-beaked dolphins. 

- Julia Benson

Bird seen on today´s tours include: arctic tern, puffin, manx shearwater, kittiwake, guillemot, arctic skua, great black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, northern fulmar