Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. The wind is coming from the North-West and is about 2-7m/s. There could be a little movement on the boat out on Faxa Bay.
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: The sun had made it through the clouds when we were sailing out this morning, but the wind had freshened up considerably so that our warm overalls came to good use this evening. After an hour of sailing we encountered a large flock of northern gannets shooting down onto the water surface like small torpedos. We would stay in proximity of this flock of birds for the whole tour because it was an almost sure indicator for a lot of fish in the area. And yes we saw our first minke whale surfacing 3 times only a few meters from the boat. But this individual turned out to be a bit elusive and we could not find it again afterwards. Therefore we continued our search and after another half an hour we reached an area where 3 different minke whales surfaced all around us ver quickly. They were likely chasing fish under the water surface and we had to be fast to keep track of them. Nevertheless we got good views of the minkes and could stay with them quite a while before we had to start heading back to the old harbour of Reykjavik. A nice minke whale tour this early evening.
- Barbara Neubarth
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out with a grey and overcast sky but the weather was not too cold allowing the passengers to stay outside for most of the journey without getting too cold. We had an interesting addition to our tour today, we were joined by some models and photographers from England doing a photoshoot, so in between the whale watching people could do some freezing model watching. After about an hour of sailing we encountered a group of white beaked dolphins together with a minke whale zooming through the water, chasing fish. Because the annimals moved so fast we lost track of them quite quickly. Luckily we encountered three more minke whales, they were spread out around the boat. A number of times they surfaced quite close allowing us to get a good look at them.
- Anouk de Plaa
Tour at 9:00
Report from Eldey: The weather conditions were not the best at first but it got better as the tour went on. The sea conditions were amongst the best I´ve had in the bay though. Almost perfect for spotting cetaceans. After about 40 minutes of sailing we saw briefly our first minke whale! most likely fishing in the deep we were waiting and waiting for it but we maybe lost it or it was just breaking an stunning diving record!Anyway, we kept our way out in order to find more cetaceans. We had a lot of passengers today and that played an important role on today´s tour. Some of them spotted the first white-beaked dolphins of the day. At least 4 individuals which became very friendly after some hide and seek and left the audience in awe after some minutes of game. My guess is that they were feeding at the bottom at first and then got more comfortable with our presence. Therefore, they started to interact more. They got super close to the bow!checking out boat out!lovely experience. We found also another minke whale which was less elusive and people could get a look a it. It came out of the water around 6 times and not very far!at about 100 meters. We also saw another pod of dolphins swimming at about 600 meters with about 6 invidivuals and a third one very close to us with about 6 individuals. They were so playful it took us very long to say goodbye to them. Unfortunately, we were running out of time so we had to leave them and wish to find them on the next tour!!. A tour full of ups and downs!
- Jorge Pascual
Bird species seen on today´s tour: northern gannet, northern fulmar, juvenile lesser black-backed gull.
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