✔ CLASSIC TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 13:00
Report from Elding: The afternoon tour was very confusing but ultimately awesome. We sailed out in very interchangeable weather, one minute it was pouring down with rain the next very sunny. You could even see where the rain was falling in the distance by the dark ominous clouds. We were fortunately quite lucky as for most of our tour it stayed mostly dry but cold and windy at times. We were not sailing for long before our captain spotted a blow far in the distance, we assumed it was a humpback whale by the size of the blow but once in the area we only found a minke whale feeding under a flock of birds, it surfaced twice more and then disappeared. It then took about 1 hour more of searching before we got a call from another whale watching boat alerting us of a big blow they saw. We were quite far away at this point but we had to go and check, after 15 minutes of sailing we arrived to find a very elusive humpback whale that we only saw the body of twice. Then we thought we were following it a while longer but only seeing the blow, we suddenly caught a glimpse of the body and it had a curved dorsal fin, this is not a humpback. It was heading away from us at an angle so we first thought it was a minke whale, very strange for it to have such a visible blow/spout though and the behaviour was also a little odd for a minke. We were utterly confused. Suddenly the whale turned and surfaced next to us showing us its body, there we could distinguish that in fact it was a very rare sighting of a sei whale! Last encounter of a sei whale by an elding crew member was in July 2017 and my last sighting was in September 2012 so you can just believe the excitement in my voice. We continued following it for a while before heading home. Now all that confusion made sense, it ended up being just a wonderful, exciting tour.
- Megan Whittaker
Bird Species ID´d today: Northern Gannet, Atlantic Puffin, Common Guillemot, Arctic tern, Arctic skua, Northern Fulmar, Kittiwake, Eider Duck, Seagulls, Manx Shearwaters.
✘ PREMIUM TOUR CANCELLED| 10:00
Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Elding for the 13:00 Classic tour. Make sure to dress appropriately for the tour as it is always colder on sea than on land. Join us by booking online or contact us directly for more information (elding@elding.is / +354 519 5000).
COVID-19: Keep in mind that passengers and crew are asked to ensure their own hygiene and safety at all times. Washing hands thoroughly with soap and using a hand sanitiser is advised, as well as wearing a face mask when keeping a 2 metre distance from others is not possible.