Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: It seemed very calm as we sailed to the puffin island Akurey where we found many puffins all around the island, standing on it and flying and swimming close to it. After a good start, we headed out on the bay with an optimistic view and spotted a minke whale far away but it only surfaced once and did not come up again as we tried to approach it. So we headed further out and it took us a long while to find another minke whale. This time it surfaced right in front of us very close, at about 30 meters. It came up three times very close but then we spotted huge splashes in the distance. We had to check that out! So we sailed towards the area where the splashes had been seen. On the way there a minke whale surfaced quite close to us but when we arrived the whale had gone and we did not get to see it. Quite disappointing as we assumed it was a breaching minke whale. On the way back we met a group of birds, among them arctic terns, but no more whales were seen. A pretty mid summer evening with few but good sightings.
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 17.00
Report from Hafsúlan: On this evening's whale watching tour, the sky was mostly covered in clouds, but the sun was breaking through here and there. The wind was calm and sea conditions quite good. After stopping by at one of the puffin islands, Akurey, where we saw some of the charismatic birds sitting on the island and a few sitting on the sea also. Most of them seemed to be out fishing however. We then headed towards the entrance of whale fjord where we spotted three Minke Whales feeding. One came reallz close to the boat and we were lucky that we did not have to smell the sinke Minke's breath. When the Minke went for a deeper dive, we decided to head further to find something else. We were hoping to find the dolphins we had seen earlier in the day. Even though we had to be quite patient, we were not disappointed when we found a logging pod of 6 to 8 White-beaked Dolphins. They seemed to be in a state of rest moving just slightly and giving us the opportunity to make pictures of them. We spotted some more minkes in the area, but all of them behaved very elusive. We were very happy, when we spotted a second group of White-beaked Dolphins on the way back and we were even able to re-recognize one of the animals with a big edge in its dorsal fin. We had seen exactly the same individual on the 1 pm tour. Also this group of dolphins seemed to be resting and only moved slowly when we decided to say good night to them and headed back to Reykjavik facing a beautiful evening sun.
- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: The waves had settled as we sailed out of the harbour this afternoon. On the way to our whale watching area we spotted a pod of harbour porpoises that appeared to be in quite a hurry as they swam away from us. They are usually quite shy and don't generally like to come close to our boats and today was not an exception although we did get to seem them quite well before they disappeared. We continued our journey into the calm bay and found a huge minke whale. It surfaced a few times before diving down. After that we did not have to move great distances to spot more minke whales. They seemed to be feeding like this morning as there were many seebirds diving into the surface and those were a great help to us as the whales would almost always surface right in the middle of a bird flock. All in all there must have been around 8 minke whales, some of which surfaced frequently. One of them surfaced on its side once, showing of its huge fluke! On the way back we stopped at Lundey the puffins island where we were not disappointed as there were many puffins standing on the island, flying around and sitting on the water in front of us. Beautiful day on a lively Faxaflói bay!
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 13:00Report from Hafsúlan: The Sun came out for this tour and we were happy to see it. We went straight out and before we got to the area where we have been spotting many animals a Minke Whale surfaced very close to us and we got a good look at it as it surfaced 4-5 times around us. We decided to head a little further out and on our way we saw a Harbour Porpoise that swam with the boat for a few seconds but then headed away. After a little bit of sailing we found more Minke whales, 2-3 animals that were around the boat and some of them came extremely close and we could here their blow, what an amazing sound. As we kept on searching a group of 4-6 White beaked Dolphins surfaced right in front of us out of no where! We were so happy to see them and they played around the boat for some time, and as we were watching them we saw another pod of 7-8 White-beaked Dolphins that were probably sleeping and we got so close to them. We watched them for some time and then headed towards the Puffin island and left the Dolphins as they were sleeping. Great tour in beautiful weather!- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: Although it was a calm morning there were still waves from yesterday evening as we headed to Akurey the puffin island, where there were lots of puffins and other birds. After that we sailed out on the bay and it did not take us long to find the first minke whale. From then on we would have minke whales surface all around us, some of which came quite close. They were feeding and there were lots of seabirds all around sharing the food that the bay appeared to be full of this morning. Among them were lots of arctic terns diving head first into the water and we even spotted three northern gannets. On one occasion a minke whale surfaced on its back right in front of the boat, showing of its white belly and making a big splash. Excellent morning with hungry mike whales and birds!
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 9:00Report from Hafsúlan: The weather was beautiful this morning, the sun wasn't out yet but the wind was calm. We started the tour with a visit to Akurey, one of the Puffins islands and then we headed out. Only after searching for 20 minutes we spotted our first Minke Whale and got a goot look at that animal. As we were in the area we saw around 15 animals that were surfacing slowly and some of them even came right in front of the boat and on the side. It was a gorgeus sighting that our passengers seemed to enjoy a lot and were wery excited to help us spotting the whale, team work always makes the job easier! Wonderful tour with the Minke Whales. - Freydís Ósk Hjörvarsdóttir
Birds seen on today's tours include: Fulmars, Lesser black-backed gulls, Herring gulls, Arctic skuas, Common guillemots, Black guillemots, Arctic terns, Puffins, Eider-Ducks, Kittiwakes, Northern gannets,