Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: What a day, Humpbacks and Dolphins! We decided to go from Grindavík today due to the brewing storm that has already taken over Faxaflói Bay. The other side of the peninsula provided nice shelter from the northerly winds and so we took our passengers on a nice little bus tour to where our boat was docked. We had a fantastic time as just 5 minutes sailing from the harbour we came across our first cetacean, a pair of humpback whales side by side. They were incredible, they surfaced many times and as they went for a deep dive they brought up their magnificent flukes. After a while of watching these guys we could see another individual in the distance and a we were pretty much heading in that direction anyway we just slowly and steadily moved with the pair until we had all thee very close. Later in the tour we wanted to see what else was a round and after another 5 minutes of sailing we came across a large pod of White-beaked Dolphins maybe 30+ but it was very hard to know for sure as they were here there and everywhere. 2-3 leaping and 11 o´clock, 3-4 surfacing fast at 2 o´clock they were just everywhere and eventually bowriding and surfacing within a meter from our boat. What a great ending to the tour you would think but actually as we started to head back to the harbour, which was only about 10 minutes away we saw the pair of humpbacks again as they wonderfully lifted their flukes in the autumn sun and another humpack whale (yes a fourth humpback whale) just a couple of minutes from the harbour. All in all, with the wildlife, landscape and setting sun it was a trip to remember.

Pictures taken by Bárður Hilmarsson and Megan Whittaker