Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Have you seen the movie The Mist ? Well, our afternoon tour had the same kind of eerie atmosphere, except instead of scary monsters there was nice cetaceans lurking in the fog surrounding us. Actually at the beginning of the tour we reached a large clear area, allowing us to spot 4 white-beaked dolphins. We followed them the best we could, and quickly noticed it seemed to be 2 mothers with their juvenile. Hence it was not surprising that the animals seemed to keep their distance from us. Protective mothers would not allow any potential threats near their precious offspring ! As we always have the desire to not force us too much upon the cetaceans, we eventually left the dolphins. The sea was so flat, so promising, that we had to go further offshore ! Then began a long but enjoyable cruising on a silver sea, with almost no wind and occasional windows of blue sky in the cloud cover. Slowly the fog thickened and we ended up swallowed in the blur. Conditions were not anymore ideal for the spotting, but a patient crew and perseverant passengers made the best out of it, and eventually surfaced in front of us THE FIRST MINKE WHALE OF 2017 ! No time to pop up any champagne, the whale immediately went for a deeper dive and we had to wait for 10 nerve-breaking minutes before it surfaced behind us, 800m away. Epic spotting of the crew, crucial participation of the passengers to keep the minke in sight, left right, we managed to have several looks at the individual and photographed it. We had to put an end at the encounter since we were seriously late on schedule, and went back home drunk with excitement.
- Guillaume Calcagni
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: Another day with awesome sea conditions! With a sea almost flat like a mirror, we sailed out into the unknown this morning - and I say the unknown because we could not see a much first since the low-hanging clouds and some fog hindered us from seeing far in the distance, even the mountains surrounding the bay disappeared completely. After about 45 min, we came across a single harbour porpoise! This cute animal only minded its own business so we were able to get a look at it traveling along the water surface. In hope to find some of our amazing dolphins, we headed further our and kept searching for a loong time while birds were the only wildlife keeping us company. Suddenly some splashes appeared in the distance and by looking closer we recognized a pod of white-beaked dolphins traveling at high speed. It was 9-11 individuals that headed in the direction of the boat, swam underneath the boat and then continued their way. We did our best to catch up with them and traveled a while along their side when they changed their direction and came straight to the boat and some of them started bow-riding. This game continued for a while, they didn't really slow down but came to us many times before popping up on the other side of the boat. It was a lot of fun to watch these dolphins swimming from one side to the other and quite impress how fast they were. Taking pictures was therefore quite a challenge today but an unforgettable experience anyway. In the end, most of the dolphins calmed down and gathered behind us in some distance. However, three particularly curious dolphins swam to the bow again and just floated underneath the water surface for a while looking up to the people standing there. Then they headed off to catch up with the rest of their group. Absolutely incredible, the dolphins are the best!
- Hanna Michel
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, kittiwake, glaucous gull, Iceland gull, cormorant, common guillemot and eider ducks.
Tour at 9am: RUNNING
We will be sailing out from the Old harbour in Reykjavík this morning. The weather is relatively good, little to no wind and light rain.
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