Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: The midnight tour was full of surprises today. Firstly, we started our trip with hopes and high expectations because previous tours had been really god in sightings so we didn´t expect less. We started to search in one of our main spotting areas and we stopped our boat thinking that we had seen some splashes, while waiting to confirm the encounter, we perceived a huge blow in the distance; best indicator of big whale presence. So we tried to figure it out what kind of animal it was and we went in the direction of the blow but the only thing we were able to find was an enormous flock of birds devouring some fish that venture to close to the surface. For a while, we went around that active patch of ocean and in the end we found a minke whale popping up just in front of us couple of times. We tried hard to locate this individual again but it seemed to be quite elusive. We ran out of time and we headed our course to Reykjavik, but not before we enjoyed a nice rainbow over Reykjanes, beautiful sunset at the end of Faxafloi and a perfect show offered by Bjarni, the very best musician in town! Despite that, we offered complimentary tickets so our passenger may have a second chance to see more animals with us in the future.
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: The evening tour was full of minke whales! It took us some time to head out to the good areas but then we got to see quite a few of these small whales. First we actually saw two of them very close together. They appeared to be feeding first but then started to travel into another area and we could still follow one of them for a bit. The conditions had gotten a bit rougher but the sailing was still pretty comfortable , even further out in the bay. And we saw more and more minke whales, often associated with a flock of feeding birds. The last of the 6-7 minke whale we saw was particularly nice to us. When spotting it for the first time, we saw it feeding, but then it traveling in the same direction that we were going to and then crossed our path in the end we we saw it a few times right in front of us, surfacing just 40 m away or so! Pretty cool and the perfect ending for my very last tour as a Guide in this company. A big thank you to all the whales, dolphins and porpoises I got to enjoy over the last 2+ years, and a big hug to all the crew members I got to work with! Goodbye, bless, auf Wiedersehen!
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsulan: Our afternoon tour couldn't´t have been better; we have had nice weather, sunny afternoon and calm sea with just a little breeze coming from the northeast.We sailed out into the middle of Faxafloi and we enjoyed the scenery and nice landscape, it was the very first time for few weeks we were able to see Snæfellsjökull in the distance! But we were there to look for cetaceans and we did. As soon as we arrived to one of our main spotting areas, we realized that it was full of sea-birds a good indicator of cetacean´s presence. It didn´t take too long when we had our first encounter: a minke whale! We were able to identify this particular one, it was humpie one of our most common resightings here in Faxafloi. But not long after we spotted a new minke whale but there was something particularly attractive about our second minke, its size. This minke was extremely small, around 2-3 meters long, so it was certainly a young calf. We named this animal as Bob, and he decided to delight us with his presence getting closer and closer every time till the very moment when he was diving just under our boat, it was a magical moment! Later on, we sailed further away and we discovered more minkes an big flocks of sea-birds flying around. In our way back home, we had another encounter with one more minke whale, in total we spotted 4 of them so it was a minke festival today! Our favorite cetacean in Faxafloi gave us a nice whale watching trip.
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Luckily the rest of the day was going better for us than in the morning! This afternoon we first saw a minke whale two times that just surfaced very close to the boat. We waited a few minutes for it but then headed further out and came across a rather large group of ca. 7 white-beaked dolphins. They were very energetic, swimming at a high speed with a lot of splashes around them and some dives inbetween. They didn't came as close as they often do but we could follow them for some time so everyone got a look. And we even saw a few more jumping dolphins in the distance. After leaving the dolphins to themselves, we headed to a flock of birds and when we were getting closer, more dolphins showed up. It was only 3-4 of them this time, but they were more curious then the first group, and coming very close to us and swimming around the bow a bit before going their own way. Again, we continued our search and during the second half of the tour encountered another 4 minke whales. The last two were particularly nice to watch. They were feeding in the same area and didn't really mind our presence. They stayed for a while and came up just 50 m away from us quite a few times, we could actually hear the sound of the blow when they exhaled. On our way back we got some strong winds in our faces but could still enjoy the sun as well!
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: Like yesterday, it was a very nice morning to go out on a boat, the sun was shining and the sea conditions were even better than expected. However, the cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) turned out to be very stubborn und uncooperative on this tour. We saw two minke whales first and got a look at them, but they didn't surface very frequently and we moved on quickly to find something else. Other boats had spotted big blows further out and suspected it to be a humpback whale. It was a bit frustrating because we only saw two blows as well and never got to see the actual animal. Therefore we headed further out into the bay without encountering any more cetaceans. At some point the time was running out and we started to head back to the harbour. On our way we came across a group of white-beaked dolphins, 5-6 individuals. They were moving around a lot but we followed them for a short while before continuing our way back. Even though we got a look at the dolphins and also a minke whale, it was just not a very successful tour and, therefore, we decided to offer everyone onboard a complimentary tickets so that they can come on another tour with us for free within the next two years and hopefully it's gonna work out better than on this tour.
- Hanna Michel
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, common guillemot, grey phalarope, atlantic puffin, arctic skua, great skua arctic tern, eider duck, lesser black-backed gull and black-legged kittiwake.
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