Tour at 17:00
Report from Elding: Sailing out faxa bay this evening, we were facing a sea that had calmed a lot and here and there the sun was even breaking through the clouds. Since visibility turned out to b quite good, we were optimistic to spot cetaceans during this evening's tour. Indeed, it took us less than 30 minutes of sailing until we spotted a couple of shy Harbour Porpoises traveling by just about a 100 meters in front of the boat before they vanished in the depths some short moments later. However, in the next moment, we spotted a Minke Whale surfacing with a big flash at nine o'clock. We thoroughly enjoyed this quite actively behaving Minke until it went for a long dive arching it's large black back. Since White-beaked Dolphins had been seen in the closer surroundings, we traveled a bit further to have a closer look at them. Just a few moments later, we found ourselves surrounded by between 10 to 15 dolphins feeding within and around a big flock of feeding Northern Gannets and some of the dolphins were even jumping here and there, which was just amazing to see. The cherry on the cake was a Minke whale on our way back to Reykjavik that surfaced very close and most of us were able to take a deep breath of the Minke's breath (a mixture of rotten eggs and rotten fish) remembering us about the Minke's second name "Sinky Minke".
- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 13:00:
Report from Hafsúlan. We headed out from Reykjavík. The wind had gone down a bit since this morning. There was a lot of birdlife in the bay today, we even saw a flock of Northern Gannets diving into the ocean. After about 40 minutes we spotted a Minke Whale, but we only saw it that one time. We saw another blow further away and headed towards that but we only managed to see that one surface once as well. We saw a small pod of 4-6 Harbour Porpoises surface close to the boat a few times. We searched a big area before seeing some White-beaked Dolphins. It was a big pod with 15-20 individuals. We managed to see them surface very close to the boat. One of the dolphins was very energetic and kept jumping out of the water so you could see its whole body in the air. On our way back we stopped at Akurey to see some puffins. A very good tour with beautiful Dolphins.
Tour at 9:00:
Report from Hafsúlan. We headed out from Hafnarfjörður. It was rather windy as we sailed out. We scanned a very big area and saw a lot of birds but unfortunetly we didn't see any whales this morning. The weather got better during the tour and we ended it by sailing to Lundey and saw many puffins. All our passengers got a complimentary ticket and can come back on tour with us within the next two years.
-Aldís Erna Pálsdóttir
Birds seen on todays tours include: Atlantic Puffins, Northern Gannets, Kittiwakes, Black-backed Gulls, Black Guillemot, Common Guillemot, Fulmars, Eider Ducks and Arctic Terns