Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The weather was much the same on this tour and the wildlife more scattered. We headed offshore and it wasn´t long until we spotted a pod of 2-3 Harbour Porpoises, which were really interactive, surfaced close and many times around our boat. Really nice encouter from a usually shy and elusive species. A couple of minutes after that the captain spotted a Minke Whale but is was far away and travelling really fast. We found more however and got some really great close encounters. All in all must have seen at least 3-4 Minke Whales and 20-30 Harbour Porpoises as well as all the birds. Nice end to the day.
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: We sailed out from Reykjavik in good sea condition but dark cloudy skies that brought a lot of rain. We started at puffin island and the puffins were there, thousands just chattering to each other outside their burrows. We headed offshore then and after about 40 minutes of sailing we found a flock of feeding gannets plunging into the water. It was incredible to watch. After 10 minutes we headed further offshore to hopefully see some whales. It took us a while to see any of the larger whales but we did see a few Harbour Porpoises which were very elusive and only surfaced a couple of times. It wasn´t until quite late in the tour our luck started to change and Minke Whales started to show up. In the end we must have seen at least 4-5 individuals and had the best look at two of them as we past through the area of gannets that we stopped at in the beginning. So we need a lot of patience on this tour but in the end we were rewarded.
Birds seen on todays tours included, Puffins, Gannets, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Common Guillemots, Razorbills, Black-Backed Gulls, Glaucous Gulls, Great Skua, Arctic Terns, Cormorants, Eider Ducks, Brent Geese, Arctic Skua, Manx Shearwater.
- Megan Whittaker