Tour at 20:30
Report from Skrúdur: Finally the sun was shining when we headed out to our nice midnight whale watching tour. The first stop was Akurey the Puffin Island where we were happy to see many Puffins being home, flying around, sitting on the water surface. After a couple of minutes we sailed out into the glare of the sun with a breathtaking view on Sneifellsjökull. We had to sail quite some time before we spotted splashes of jumping White Beaked Dolphins, a pod of maybe 10-15 individuals. It was very nice to have them in the beautiful evening light and on the way back we listened to our lovely musician Bjarni.
-Lisa Hofmann
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: We headed out to the sea with a shining sun. We stopped by Akurey and got to see some lovely Puffins flying around their island. We headed out to go whale watching and soon found ourselves a midst heavy fog. We could barley see 10 meters in front of the boat. Despite it being quite cool in the fog we were worried we might have trouble finding some animals. We were very lucky to happen upon some White-Beaked Dolphins. We got to watch them for a little bit before they vanished into the fog. We headed on our way and after a little while in the fog we finally made it through to the other side. The skies cleared up, the sun was bright and the sea was perfect for whale watching. We found some flocks of Arctic Terns and this is where we spotted our first Minke Whale. This individual seemed to disappear, but we headed on our way and were very happy to find some more white-beaked dolphins who got very close to the boat. After a while we decided to go see if we could find another minke whale and sure enough we found one. This one seemed to be fishing and came close to the boat where we could even see its blow hole. On our way back towards the harbour we spotted two more minke whales and got the chance to see them surface around 6-10 times before heading back to Reykjavík with the lovely evening sun in the sky.
-Taylor Theódór
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: The rain had stopped when we sailed directly out into the bay to search in the area where we spotted the whales this morning. We had to search for a while until we spotted some Harbour Porpoises and a little while later we found a lovely Minke Whale that surfaced a couple of times close to the boat. We headed back in a wonderful sunny evening, a great tour!
-Lisa Hofmann
Tour at 13:00:
Report from Hafsúlan: As we headed out the fog had lifted a bit. We headed out to the area where we had seen the Minke Whales this morning. After a while we spotted a Minke Whale about 100 m away from us. We followed this whale throughout the whole tour. It came up very often and didn't stay down for too long on its deep dives. Right before we left it came up a few times very close to the boat, just 10 m away. On our way back we stopped in Akurey to see the wonderful little puffins. A very good tour on a calm day.
-Aldís Erna Pálsdóttir
Tour at 10:00
Report from Skrúður: Heading out in a very calm but foggy bay, we decided to stop first at Engey, the home of the little Puffins. We only saw 3 Puffins sitting in front of their "homes" so we decided to keep on going and maybe stop on another island on the way back. We got the message from our sister vessel Hafsúlan, that they spotted some whales so we approached them, suddenly being sourrounded by Minke Whales. We saw 5 to 10 individuals all around our boat and even though it started to rain we stayed with the majestic Minkes for a long time until we headed back to the harbour. It was a truely amazing tour in a very nice sea condition and with amazingly many whales and sea birds!
-Lisa Hofmann
Tour at 9:00:
Report from Hafsúlan and Elding: It was very foggy this morning but the sea was calm. We started our tour in Lundey where there were a lot of atlantic puffins sitting on the ocean. As we headed out we couldn't see to far because of the fog. But after 40 minutes we spotted a Minke Whale. This was the first of many Minkes. We probably saw around 8-10 animals all around us and some of them surfacing right next to the boats. There were also a lot of birds feeding in this area, including Northern Gannets plunging into the water.
-Aldís Erna Pálsdóttir
Birds seen on the tour include: Northern Gannets, Arctic Skua, Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Common guillemot, atlantic puffins, black guillemots, Great black-backed gulls, cormorants and Arctic Terns.