Saturday, 10 August 2013

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This afternoon the weather was fantastic, with little wind and very calm seas. We began the trip with a visit to the small puffin colony on the island Engey, always a nice start to a tour. We then headed further out onto Faxa bay proper to begin our search for the whales. At first things looked very quiet with little bird life and little other life in sight. Then we noticed one flock of feeding seabirds and went closer to take a look. When we arrived the area was teeming with birds and then a Minke whale festival began. We had whales surface on every side of the boat both close to us and further away. Throughout the rest of the tour we simply stayed put and witnessed the minke surface extremely close to us as well as further away in the gentle afternoon breeze. It was a phenomenal tour and at the end we even had a short visit from the usually shy Harbor porpoises which rounded out our trip very nicely. All in all a great tour with active passengers and great whales!

-Ívar Elí Sveinsson

Tour at 14:00

Very good tour, white beaked dolphins, 4 minkes and harbour porpoises all feeding in 1 area, lots of sea birds, diving gannets. Few puffins on engey. Excellent sea condition.

- Lisa Hoffmann

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We sailed out on very calm seas and threathening clouds. It didn´t rain though which was nice. We sailed out to the same area as the mornings tour but things had calmed down a lot, the birds has dispersed and the minke whales vanished so we slowly travelled through the area waiting patiently for the minke whales to show up again and they did. We stayed with one Minke Whale for a long time and with each surface it came closer and closer. At the end the Minke Whale trusted us enough to surface only 10-20 meters from our boat. You could hear the breathe and see the white of the pectoral fins. Later on in the tour we saw other minkes surfacing in the distance, 4-5 in all but we had to head back to the harbour. On the way back we got to see a small pod of 2-3 Harbour Porpoises and also 3 White-beaked Dolphins. A nice afternoon on the sea.

-Megan Whittaker

Tour at 10:00

Many puffins on engey. Few sea birds offshore. Saw humpy and one other minke whale and harbour porpoises very close to the boat. Good sea condition. Nice tour.

- Lisa Hoffmann

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We sailed out on good sea conditions, we started the tour at Engey to see the Puffins of which there were many. We then sailed to the area we were in yesterday but not much was happening. We then got word from another whale whale watching vessel about a couple of Minkes they found. It was great, two Minke Whales were feeding with lots of seabirds around.  You even got to see the minke whale rolling as it closed it´s mouth of food. The were also Harbour Porpoises taking advantage of the plentiful bounty. Fantastic morning.

-Megan Whittaker

Birds seen on today's tour: Northern Gannet, Atlantic Puffin, Arctic Tern, Arctic Skua, Fulmar, Kittiwakes, Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Cormorants, Eider Ducks, Greylag Geese. Common Guillemots, Black Guillemots, Razorbills.