Monday, 25 July 2016

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out from the old harbor in Reykjavík today. The sea is very calm and there is little to no wind.

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding. What a tour! The rain had stopped and there was no wind when we left the harbour this evening. We wanted to try our luck in the same area Eldey saw the humbpack whales earlier. Once we got further out we saw 2 humpback whales!  They were traveling together, first rolling in the surface but then they became very relaxed. surfacing very frequently close to the boat. There were also few white-beaked dolphins next to the humbacks but they swam away shortly after we arrived. Once we left them in peace we didn't have to wait long to see more humpback whales. One humpback whale breached but it was quite far away but we could see the splashes. We saw few minke whales around but they were all a bit elusive and didn't want to be seen. That didn't really matter to us because the humpback whales really did put on a show for us. On the way back we saw a small pod of white-beaked dolphins. They came close to the boat and swam around us for few mintues. A perfect end to a brilliant evening tour.

-Sveinn Guðmundsson

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: We left in heavy rain and an overcast sky but this did not stop the passengers from standing outside on the topdeck. After half an hour we encountered 4 harbour porpoises that were awesome, they came heading towards the boat, porpoising next to the boat for a while. We could even follow them under the water! At that point we also spotted a minke whale, the first of many to come. We watched the animal surface a few times close to the boat and then we decided to move to the area where a number of humpback whales were seen before. While travelling towards the humpback whales we spotted at least 8 different minke whales in the distance. We spotted a humpback slapping its pectoral fins in the water in the distance almost missing the humpback whale that was logging right in front of us. We woke up the logging humpback whale and it stretched itself putting its face and fluke above the water at the same time before swimming of. We moved on to the pec slapping humpback whale, the animal rolled around waving its pectoral fins and came up for air very close to the boat. A pod of 5 atlantic dolphins approached in the distance and moved towards the humpback whale, the humpback swam over to the dolphins and they started to play!! The humpback was rolling around with the dolphins swimming around it. It was so amazing to watch! At this point we had to head back to reykjavik but on our way back we spotted 6 more minke whales in the distance and a few pods of harbour porpoises. What an incredible tour!

-Anouk

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: On our way out we were accompanied by heavy rain fall that only stopped once we had reached our main sighting areas. Once there, we saw a humpback whale close to other boats that soon left the area. It was rolling on the side and then slapping with one of its pectoral fins on the water surface and then traveled along our boat. Once it went for a dive, we noticed a second humpback whale also fairly close to us. After spending some time with the humpbacks, we moved over to a different area where some dolphins had been spotted and there they were: at least 15 white-beaked dolphins including juveniles and at least 3 tiny calves. These dolphins were the best dolphins I have seen in a while, they were completely relaxed, coming close to us, leaping and one of the calves did not stop to jump out of the water in all ways you can think of. Amazing how close they let us get and then decided to come even closer considering how young some of the calves must be. Anyway, these dolphins were in the perfect mood to entertain our passengers (and the guide). We didn´t want to overstay our welcome, so we decided to leave them to themselves and had another look at one of the humpbacks again before heading back to the harbour. On our way, we saw a minke whale coming up only about 250 m away from us and tried to get a better look at it as well. We waited patiently and managed to get a bit closer so that we could cross species No. 4 off our list, after we had already seen the small harbour porpoises on our way out. 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: The weather was nice as we left the harbour and the sea was very calm. Not long after we left the harbour we spotted a humpback whale but it was about 2 kilometers away so it took a while to get closer. When we were within a kilometer we spotted a minke whale on our 10 o'clock and a pod of about 8-10 white-beaked dolphins on our 1 o'clock. We tried to follow the minke whale but soon it disappeared and then we turned our focus to the dolphins. They had 2-3 calves with them and at first they were just traveling but then they started leaping, sideways leaping, head slamming and the calves were copying the grown-ups which was so cute! We stayed with the dolphins for a while but then decided to check out that humpback whale we saw earlier. As we were getting closer it started tail-slapping! Then it rolled on its back and started tail-slapping again so we got a very good look at the fluke and saw that it was Cheezel, a humpback whale we recognize. We stayed with it until we were running out of time and then we started heading back to the harbour but the tour was far from over because on our way back we spotted two more pods of white-beaked dolphins, five minke whales, six humpback whales and we even saw like 10-15 harbour porpoises scattered around. We were just surrounded by wildlife. We even saw a harbour seal! A great tour with acrobatic dolphins and a tail-slapping humpback.

-Bryndís Ösp

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: What a great way to start the week. It was such a good Monday for whale watching in the Bay. A bit rainy morning but a completely flat sea which allowed us to spotted different species. After 20 minutes of sailing out from the port we encountered 2 harbour porpoises that were swimming quiet slow next to the boat for a couple of minutes. Because the flat sea we could see them even from the distance. No longer than 10 more minutes passed when we came across with a minke whale. We were for about 10 minutes enjoying this animal when we decided to keep going out to look for something else. A bit further out we spotted two humpback whales which were not far away from each other feeding in the area. Sometimes they were even lunge feeding at the surface showing the whole mouth, what a display! We could stay for a while after we left. However, in our way back we came across another humpback whale which also was lunge feeding and even rolling close to the surface, showing us the white pectoral flippers. Once we thought we saw everything in the Bay, a passenger spotted a group of white beaked dolphins. It was a pod of 12-15 dolphins, adults, juveniles and calves with their mum. We spent a couple of minutes with them before we left, but we could see how they were wave riding some waves. That was indeed an amazing morning in Faxaflói!

- Alejandro García

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: This Monday morning we sailed out on a flat sea with no wind. Good condition for spotting wildlife out in Faxafloi. Our first encounter was with a pod of white-beaked dolphins just after 30 minutes sailing. They were swimming all around the boat and gave us a playful start of the tour. Not too far away we spotted a humpback whale and stayed with this individual for a while. Since we weren't that far out in the bay we decided to sail further out to look for more species. A pod of harbour porpoises showed up and within one hour sailing we had already seen 3 species. What a great start of the tour! More humpback whales were to follow, this time we were able to identify them by the black and white patterns underneath the fluke. It was Cheezel and Ðröstur that joined us for a long time. It was really great to see old friends again! Now we were only waiting for the forth most common species in the bay: the stinky minky (minke whale)! While enjoying the presence of Cheezel and Ðröstur a minke whale showed up 500 m from the boat. Check point! All four species on the tour! During the rest of the tour we could see another pod of white-beaked dolphins, a couple of blows from humpbacks in the distance and in total 4 minke whales were spotted during the entire tour. With such a wildlife in the bay this morning we were just wondering how the rest of the day would be like. Hopefully as diverse as this morning tour!

- Johanna Bergman
 

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, razorbill, common guillemot, Atlantic puffin, Arctic tern, Arctic skua, lesser black-backed gull, and kittiwake.