Status Tour 9 and 13: RUNNING
We are sailing from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik at 9am today. According to the forecast the wind is calm, there could be some movement on the boat.
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Sunlight and relaxing sea made up for the cold on our afternoon tour ! Sporadically we faced the wind, freezing our uncovered nose, cheeks or ears, but the majestic lights out there and the easy sailing were worth it ! We sailed straight away westward and began to check more carefully an area where we crossed several flocks of sea birds sitting on the water. We had a hunch that something would happen here, and were proved right when a pod of appreciatively 6 white-beaked dolphins greeted us. A little bit tricky to follow at first, they became more relaxed and curious about us as we sticked around them thanks to the clever maneuvering of our captain. The conveniently circled around the boat, allowing everybody on our busy ferry to have a look at them, and they even had the delicacy to do so less than 60m away from us ! We also got treated with a couple of leaps and swimming under the boat, and could stay for a while with them. As other boats joined us and time was running low, we quietly sailed back home while staying alert for potential other sightings. No more cetaceans for this tour, but this lovely pod of dolphin and the weather made our to make of this trip a successful experience.
- Guillaume Calcagni
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: It was a slightly chilly day as we headed out into a very flat and beautifully lit bay, the sun was rising behind us, showering everything in the most spectacular orange light. We had only been sailing for 20 minutes and hadn´t even reached the lighthouse grotta before our first species was spotted. A pod of 3 white-beaked dolphins surfaced only 120 meters in front of us. They surfaced wonderfully close and even jumped and leaped out of the water a few times. Which let us view the beautiful black and white stripes down their bodies. After watching these delightful animals for some time it was decided to move further out into the bay and try to spot something else. The spotting conditions were difficult as the fog became more intense and a light rain had started nevertheless yet another pod of 4-5 dolphins appeared out of the gloom and gave us the most wonderful show coming up very close only a few meters from the boat and even swimming right underneath it! What a spectacular end to the tour.
- Tess Hudson
Bird species seen on todays tour: european shag, cormorant, razorbill, common guillemot, iceandic gull, glaucous gull, sooty shearwater, northern fulmar and black-backed gull
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