Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: What a beautiful night! The weather conditions were really good, the wind dropped since the night before so we were pretty optimistic. We stopped at Puffin Island on the way out to “warm up the cameras”. Then we were supposed to sail 40 minutes before reaching the general area we spot the whales but we saw our first Minke Whale after only 10 minutes. This guy was probably busy feeding at the bottom of the bay so we left it. We saw a second Minke Whale a bit more offshore. This one was changing direction around the boat so we had a great look at it for a while. We enjoyed the way back with a funny musician with the beautiful sunset behind the boat.
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: Prepared for a long search we sailed straight out into the bay and after we passed some sea miles we started the tour with a pod of Harbor Porpoises. As so often they were shy and we stayed not long with them. Then we searched a long long time and went really far out until we saw a flock of feeding birds, Not far away we suddenly spotted two Minke Whales at the same time. Both of them were illusive so we went on searching. When we turned the boat we saw a blow and a black back twice in a distance but there was nothing surfacing again. We did not loose hope went on searching and found finally a Minke Whale we all got a great look at. This one was even diving under the boat and we could see the big body under the surface, this was amazing. At the same time we got a call from another vessel with the information about dolphins in an area three miles away. It was already late but we decided to risk it and headed straight to them. This was a good decision as it brought us the happy ending of the day. We stayed a long time with a pod of 6 to 8 White Beaked Dolphins which were fast traveling surfacing many times close to our boat and even diving underneath us. Great and magic moment in the sunset of Faxaflói bay! After this we were already very late and had to head straight back towards the harbor. On the way home we remembered that we still had to stop at the Puffin colony what made the delay a bit more. But this was worth it as we ended our day with a really good tour!
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding : Very beautiful weather again and superb visibility in the bay, nice scenery but no whales we searched for long and found at the end only harbour porpoises. We gave complimentary tickets to our passengers.
Birds seen : Puffins, manx shearwaters, gannets and young gannets, common and brunnich guillemots, arcti terns, fulmars, black headed gulls, lesser black backed gulls, herring gulls, kittiwakes, and arcti skuas.
Tour at 1300
Report from Hafsúlan: When we left Reykjavík we started the tour at Akurey and watched Puffins on the colony. After that we headed out into a calm bay in nice sunshine. It did not take us a long time to find two Minke Whales, that we watched a bit. At the same time we found a pod of Harbor Porpoises that we got a good look at. After we saw those cute and small whales we stayed very shortly with one Minke Whale again. As it was illusive we decided to head on hoping to find a better one. Unfortunately the whole bay seemed to be empty after this meeting with the whales and we could not find any other individuals. We were searching for a very long time in a great area of the bay and came back after a long tour with a good start and slow end.
Tour at 10:00
Report from Skrúður : our smallest whale-watching boat was packed up to its legal limit on this tour due to that Hafsúlan and Elding had both had to go out at 0900 due to the great number of passengers. We in the crew feared at first that the number onboard would lessen the enjoyment of going whale-watching but our worries turned out to be not necessary for we understood from the passengers that they had very much enjoyed themselves. It was thanks to several events. Firstly the two Minke Whales we saw very soon into the tour, even before we normally start to see whales, but then, these animals can pop up anywhere. The weather was also exceptionally good and almost hard to believe that it was only on Monday that we had had to cancel tours due to storm and strong winds. There was a quiet period for about 20-30 minutes, during which we thought the fun was over, but as it turned out, it was just about to start. Splashes in a distance told us something was breaching (jumping) but both the captain and the guide were unable to identify from that distance whether the animal responsible was a dolphin or a whale. We went towards it and saw it breech time and time again, it stopped and disappeared and then again. Upon the second time we realised that it was White-beaked Dolphin that had been splashing. We followed the small pod (5-8) of these charismatic animals for a while. They enjoyed our company too and even travelled in the waves created by the boat! However, on the way back when the guide and captain spoke together, the subject of what was responsible for the first splashes was brought up. We consulted the pictures of several passengers and found that it had actually been a breaching Minke Whale that had lead us to the trail of the breaching Dolphins! Astonishing! But then the Minke Whale had simply vanished before we got a close look at him and we did not try to search for him because we began focusing on the dolphins straight away. What an odd thing! On the way back a fourth Minke Whale popped up a few times but we were so satisfied with the dolphin experience that we just decided to leave him in peace.
Tour at 9:00
Report from Hafsulan : We went straight to the Akurey puffin island, a lot of birds at the surface of the water and flying, and to our great surprise full of fish in the bills, bringing them to their burrows, which means possibly that this year we have chicks!!! We went out and the guide spotted a minke whale after a while at 12 o'clock, and then passengers spotted something else at 11 and it was 5-7 White Beaked Dolphins! And very nice slow surfacing one! We still had the minke whale further away that we decided then to follow it and what a nice one! It must be a minkie we already know with the name of MORSETTO AL TIP, who felt comfortable with us and surfaced around 25 meters to 60 meters from the boat. The sea was incredibly calm the weather prodigious and the visibility wonderful! Passengers even had a look at so many different species of birds : one gannet, puffins, common guillemots, arctic terns, kittiwakes, arcti skuas, eider ducks, lesser black backed gulls, Manx Shearwaters, and on the way back we saw two imcredible small STORM PETRELS !!! flying near the surface circling the boat, and people managed to see it well.