Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: A warm, overcast afternoon with the sun rays fighting their way through the clouds and over the bay. Sea was calming down quickly after the stormy weather and there was a lot less swell after the mornings tour. We headed out and saw a nice variety of seabirds; gannets, kittiwakes, eider ducks, puffins, guillemots, fulmars and many more. It really feel like summer when you start to see all the birds returning to Iceland after their migration, birds like the puffin and the skua's that you don't get to see in the winter time. The harbour porpoises were also in a very good mood this afternoon, playing in the swells and under and around the boats, traveling slowly so that all the passengers could see them and actually photograph them too, which is not an easy thing to do. We saw at least 10 pods, 3-6 porpoises in each. They were definitely the stars of the show today. We searched a large area to look for the larger cetaceans and spotted a grey seal that didn't stick around for long and near the end of a tour, 3 hours in, a minke whale finally popped up. It was seen only twice, first time by the guide about 1km away and the second time by the captain, engineer and a few eager passengers. It was very difficult, erratic and hard to follow. We were already very late heading back and we had to leave. Even though this was a very nice tour with incredible porpoises, birds, weather and the seal we still gave out complimentary tickets in the hope passengers would spot larger cetaceans on their next try.
- Megan Whittaker
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: We knew that weather in Iceland can change quickly, but boy this morning the Icelandic climate was in a bipolar mood ! We left with a clear grey sky and almost no wind, to find ourselves quickly in the middle of a small scale snow storm, and finally we emerged in a clear blue sky and warm sun ! A fantastic ride with a happy ending. And of course the happy ending was linked with the presence of cetaceans. During this tour we met two different pods of white-beaked dolphins. The first one consisted of 6-8 individuals, that were surfacing slowly. Seeing how relaxed they were, we could successfully get close to them on a couple of occasions and get some nice shots. The second pod had about 4-6 individuals and proved to be trickier to follow. It was probably due to the presence of juveniles we saw among, carefully protected from harms by the parents. In between these two families of dolphins we encountered about 5 harbour porpoises just in front of us, very close to the boat. Porpoises being porpoises, these little daredevils did not stay so long but passengers in front of the boat could have a close encounter. No luck with bigger cetaceans for the rest of our excursion, but the sailing back to the harbour was great with epic scenery and nice temperatures.
- Guillaume Calcagni
Bird species seen on today's tour include: atlantic puffin, northern gannet, arctic skua, northern fulmar, eider duck, common guillemot, razorbill, great black-backed gull, Icelandic gull & herring gull, great skua, cormorant, kittiwakes.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. The sea is a bit rough today so if you are sensitive to motion sickness we offer preventative tablets in the ticket office, free of charge!
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