Friday, 24 May 2013

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Once again we sailed out with rainy weather, which dampened our spirits a little bit, but later on it became very beautiful with a few blue scattered areas in the skies and a stunning rainbow. We started our tour at Lundey puffin Island to say hello to the puffins at home and hopefully see the Humpback Whale on the way out. We did find the Humpback again but it was more elusive than the afternoon tour and in the end we had to go searching for something else. Once, whilst waiting for the humpback we spotted a couple of puffins mating. We thought we should play some romantic music, maybe a bit of Barry White, for them but we decided not too. When we got quite far offshore we noticed a Minke Whale which surfaced many times and close to the boat too. We even got to smell the minkes bad breath which is always interesting. Slow start but a great end.

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We sailed out from Reykjavik in once again not very nice weather, whilst we stopped at Puffin Island it was lashing it down but this didn´t disturb the birds, they just thought it was a nice shower to clean their feathers. We then headed out offshore to find the whales, by which time the clouds had cleared and we even got a bit of blue sky. We suddenly saw a blow in the distance and approached it, intrigued in what it might be. After at lot of patience and scanning we discovered it was a Humpback Whale, Whoo hoo! We followed the humpback for a while and got closer and closer to it with every surfacing sequence. Patience always pays off.

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We started the tour at Akurey Puffin Island and was not disappointed, many puffins everywhere. We then headed offshore and after about 40 minutes of sailing we found ourselves in the middle of so much wildlife, at least 5 Minke Whales surfaced in a space of 1 minute in roughly the same area. A pod of 5-7 White-beaked Dolphins also came to join us and a couple of small pods of Harbour Porpoises that surfaced just a couple of meters for the boat. We saw a large blow in the distance and went to investigate, could not find it again however but did find a second pod of White-beaked Dolphins 3-5 which came to play a round the boat for a couple of minutes before heading off again.

Birds seen on today's tours: Atlantic Puffins, Kittiwakes, Black-backed Gulls, Fulmars, Northern Gannets, Eider Ducks, Cormorants, Common Guillemots, Black Guillemots, Arctic Terns, Arctic Skuas, Great Skuas.

-Megan Whittaker

A couple of these pictures have been kindly given to us by one of our passengers. So, a thank you to Mr. J. Agate from Norfolk, England.