Tour at 17:00
Report from Elding: Sea conditions were quite nice going out with East wind in our back and a little overcast. While conditions were quite good and we spotted many sea birds, it took about an hour and a half for us to spot the first cetacean. After noticing a foul and fishy smell, we suspected a ´stinky´ minke whale in the area. Shortly after we spotted a single minke whale, which surfaced again a second time, but remained elusive for the rest of the trip. Almost on our way back we spotted about 4 white-beaked dolphins jumping out of the water, however stopped this behaviour before we could get closer. When we go into a 100m radius of them, the dolphins were surfacing a couple of times and stayed with us for about 10 minutes. As the dolphins were the last cetaceans we encountered on this trip and the overall sighting success was low throughout the tour, we offered complimentary tickets to the passengers and hope for a better trip next time.
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Sea conditions were pretty good and weather mostly overcast. About 45 minutes into the trip we saw harbour porpoises on our left between 50 and 100m away. As they were travelling in the same direction as us and surfaced a couple of times,it was actually quite easy for most passengers to get a look at them. Maybe half an hour later we spotted 2 pods of white-beaked dolphins, which later merged into one. They seemed to be resting, but as they were staying relatively close to our boat, we stayed with them for a while. One of the dolphins was identified using photo identification and turned out to be Constantine, an individual who had been seen every year since 2007. Overall, conditions stayed good and we observed quite a few flocks of arctic terns. Just as we had to turn the boat around, we spotted a minke whale, which popped up only a few times. As most of the passengers had spotted it and we were out of time, we had to abandon the site and make our way back to Reykjavik.
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: Despite some strong winds in the morning, we still had rather comfortable sea conditions with the winds in our backs as we headed out and just a bit of swell. It didn´t take us an hour to come across a group of ca. 5 white-beaked dolphins! In the beginning, they seemed to be a bit moody and did't show themselves very well but we kept an eye on them in the distance and then they finally headed towards us and we got a great look. What's even better was that two dolphins that were a bit further away started to jump out of the water numerous times and as we got closer we could see them racing through the water back and forth. They were probably feeding which allowed us to spend a while with them and a lot of different bird species that were around as well. After moving on, we caught a glimpse at 2-3 harbour porpoises that were traveling by, and in the end we also saw a minke whale! It was another whale watching boat finding it, but they were kind enough to let us know so we so this minke whale quite relaxed surfacing numerous times rather close to us. A great end for our morning tour!
- Hanna Michel
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, lesser black-backed gull, kittiwake, cormorant, arctic tern, arctic skua, atlantic puffin, common guillemot, razorbill, eider duck, manx shearwater.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old harbour in Reykjavik today. There is some wind so there could be movement on the boat out on Faxabay. If you are sensitive to motion sickness we do provide seasickness tablets, free of charge! Hope you will be able to join us on our search for these magnificent animals in their natural environment.
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