Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: In the evening, the wind was blowing quite strong and we were facing a bit of a swell when we were heading out towards Lundey, another puffin island in front of Reykjavik. Similarly to Akurey, only very few birds were on or around the island - is this the beginning of the end of the puffin season? When we continued our journey towards where we had seen Minke Whales on the 13:00 tour, we were facing quite rough conditions that some certainly enjoyed more than others. The rough sea made spotting whales quite difficult and the strong waves only allowed us to travel with low speed. Therefore, it took us quite long to reach remote waters, but we were very positively surprised when a Minke Whale surfaced close by when we still had not reached our target area. It was "Humpie" the Minke Whale that is missing the upper third of its dorsal fin, how nice to meet an old friend! Soon after, a second ondividual joined the scenery. It was impressive to see them surfaceing in the rough water, it looked abit like they were surfing the waves. We headed a bit further when we spotted a big blow in about 500 meters distance. It turned out to be another couple of Minke Whales, which we thoroughly enjoyed before we had to head back to Reykjavik. On the way back, the wind had calmed down a bit and we were enjoying the warm evening sun - what a well-deserved happy end of a tour that had started quite rough!
- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 14:00
Report form Elding: The wind had picked up as we headed out on the bay this afternoon, but it was still sunny and very clear. There were still lots of puffins at Lundey, mostly sitting on the water around us. After having stopped at Lundey, it took us a long while to find the first whale as we had to sail out quite far. On the way, we spotted harour porpoises only several meters from the boat but shy as they tend to be, they disappeared quickly. We headed on and finally, there it was: a minke whale! Apparently, it was feeding as there were many birds around, mostly seagulls but also a couple of northern gannets, and thus changed its direction and speed a lot. It was very difficult to tell where it would come up but we managed to get a good look at it several times, some of which it surfaced close enough for us to head its vigorous blows! After having enjoyed the company of this majestic big minke whale we had to start heading back to the city as we had run out of time. We were a bit disappointed to find only one animal but such is wildlife. On the way back we could observe the beautiful scenery, for instance the glacier Snæfellsjökull as the visibility was absolutely stunning today.
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúlan: In the afternoon, when it was still sunny, but the wind had picked up a little, we headed out once more to Akurey, the puffin island in front of Reykjavik. Again, only very few birds were at home, so we decided to head out straight to see some whales. We were not disappointed when we spotted the black back of a Minke Whale after half an hour of sailing. We spent quite some time with the Minke and even saw it lunge-feeding one time when it came up within a group of feeding seabirds-amazing! Along the tour we must have seen 2 to 3 different individuals, some surfacing relatively close to our vessel. Some of us were also able to get a glimpse of a Harbour Porpoise, one of these very shy creatures of faxa bay!A nice afternoon cruise making me look forward to the upcoming evening tour :-)
- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: It was as calm as it ever gets in the harbour this morning and the sea was almost like a mirror! We started at Lundey they puffin island and were delighted to see all the cute little puffins swimming around us in the beautiful weather. It was a clear day and the sun was shining as we headed for out whale watching area. We could see all the way to the peninsula Snæfellsnes and had an excellent view on the glacier Snæfellsjökull. It didn't take us too long to find the first white-beaked dolphins, breaching out of the water in the distance making big splashes. As we got closer, they stopped breaching but started swimming along our boat, occasionally approaching us, diving under us and apparently quite enjoying our company. We stayed with them for a while until we decided to try our luck with other species. We headed further out and indeed we found a feeding minke whale. At first we had a hard time getting close to it as it was behaving unpredictably but then all of a sudden when we thought we had lost track of it, it surfaced right next to us, only around ten meters away. Great tour this morning in excellent weather conditions.
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The sea was nice and super calm as we headed towards faxa bay this sunny morning. A short stop at Akurey, one of the puffin islands revealed that there were not many birds on the island. This could be due to the late state of the season, however, some representatives of the species were at home. As we headed out further, we saw splashes in the distance and were very happy to spot a group of 4 White-beaked Dolphins in the distance, on of them jumping several times! We thoroughly enjoyed watching the dolphins in this beautiful scenery! Then, we tried to find something else and even though we tried hard, we were not able to find a larger whale. Still, we were very happy to meet another group of 4 to 6 White beaked Dolphins on the way back- What a nice start in the day!
- Hendrik Schultz
Birds seen on today's tours include: Puffins, lesser black backed gulls, kittiwakes, nothern gannets, common guillemots, eider ducks, fulmars, black guillemots