Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: The swell gradually built throughout the day, along with the wind. The ride was therefore bumpy on the way out and conditions worsened for spotting wildlife as the visibilty was reduced due to the light rain, overcast skies and foggy conditons. We reached the area where we sighted dolphins earlier in the day and out of the blue surfaced three white beaked dolphins very quickly through the waves. Unfortunately for all onboard this was the only time we saw the dolphins as they were lost quickly in the poor conditions. This was the only time we saw any cetacean species, meaning complimentary tickets were issued.
- Mike Smith
Tour at 9:00
Report from Eldey: When going out for this last morning tour of the year, it felt still like in the middle of the night. But we were soon greeted by some daylight. Unfortunately, we were not able to see the sunrise today as it was very foggy. However, we were still able to see a few hundreds meter wide and the sea conditions were good with a small and long swell coming from the south west. This morning, the bay of Faxafloi was very quiet. Only a very few birds like common guillemots, eider ducks and icelandic gulls were spotted. After nearly 2 hours of no signs of cetaceans, we were surprised by a small group of 3 white-beaked dolphins, of which two of them performed two very high jumps. But only a very few people were lucky enough to see them before they disappeared again. After this very brief encounter with those elusive dolphins we had to turn back as we were far out in the bay. But only a few minutes later we were found by another pod of 5-6 white-beaked dolphins. And this pod was very curious. They approached the vessel several times and were obviousely checking us out. Thus, we spend quite some time with them before we went back home!
- Nicole Koestner
Birds seen: common guillemot, eider duck, northern gannet, northern fulmar, black backed gull, glaucous gull, Iceland gull