Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had picked up a little bit this afternoon. Again we managed to spot a minke whale quite early in the tour. This minke was just great! It was surfacing really close to the boat allowing us to both hear it and see it very clearly. After a long time with this minke we headed further out. We wanted to try the area we saw all the animals in the 13 o'clock tour. On the way we saw another minke whale but this one only surfaced few times before taking off. Once we got further out we saw that there were LOT of gannets flying and diving! That sighting was enough to see even without the whales. We saw one minke whale with the gannets but only twice. The wind had picked up a bit more so we headed back home to Reykjavík with good memories of a very nice minke whale and diving gannets.

Tour at 14:00Report from Elding: The bay was full of life this afternoon! We sailed out the beautiful sunny and calm Faxaflói bay with the clear blue sky above us. After a little sail we spotted a small pod of Harbour Porpoises, we watched these small Porpoises for a while before we decided to head further out to see what else the bay had to offer today. The next cetaceans to cross our path where a pod of playful White Beaked Dolphins. They were fun to watch as always but we were tempted to keep on going when we heard from our sister wessel Hafsúlan that there were Minke Whales and Dolphins little further on. So on we cept and were soon rewarded with another pod of White Beaked Dolphins. When we were watching them we spotted in a distance a Minke Whale and were soon surprised with three Minkes surfacing at the same time very close to the boat! That was so amazing seeing them all at the same time all around the boat! The area were we spotted the Minkes was full of life the sea bubbling with Mackerel and birds like Northern Gannets, Lesser Black Backed and Fullmars diving down to feed so this was very lively tour in many aspects!

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan. The weather was simply perfect for a whale watching tour today. We started the tour by spotting a minke whale quite early in the tour. This one was being little bit elusive so we headed further out. We did not regret that decision! Harbour porpoises, several pods of white-beaked dolphins and minke whales all in the same area! We stopped counting the minke whales after 4 individuals and all these animals were surfacing all around us. We even turned off the engines just to enjoy the moment. This sure was a beautiful tour!

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: on this tour we found Harbour Porpoises (3-5) practically in the harbour; they were playing just off Engey Island. We spent a little time watching them but then decided to go off in search of something bigger and easier to see. That we came across in the shape of a remarkably docile Minke Whale that was swimming in front of Hvalfjordur fjord. Around the same location were 1-2 other Minkes but we soon lost them and just followed this nice fellow around for a while until we again decided to look for something different. Remembering the many dolphins we have seen in the past week, we were hoping to find them but did not, yet it was a very nice tour.

Tour at 9:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We went straight out at sea, and the sea conditions were perfect, not a perfect visibility when you looked far away. But we found our first minke whale close to Reykjavik 20 minutes after sailing. We saw in total 3 minke Whales approached them slowly getting closer to them little by little. It Was a nice morning in the Faxafloi! Gannets and Guillemots with chicks, and fulmars were there as well.