Tour at 1700
Report from Elding: While all our passengers are important to us, it was a particular delight to welcome onboard a couple from the USA who had been Puffin watching earlier today and a lady from the UK who was on her fourth whale-watching tour with us just on this holiday! Returning passengers are a sign of that we're doing something right. However, we never know where the whales will be and we had to go far out this time to find 'good' whales, virtually to the roots of Snæfellsnesjökull Glacier on the opposite side of Faxaflói Bay. Previously we had seen 3-4 Minke Whales which we lost after seeing just once. We were getting nervous that this would be a bad tour, until all of a sudden the first 'proper'Minke popped up and what a welcoming sight it was! We followed it and its mate for 10-15 minutes until we had to return to Reykjavik due to how far out we had travelled. But the worries of no sightings ended up being for no reason and the view to the glacier and the mountains across the Bay on Snæfellsnes Peninsula was a bonus!
Tour at 1300
Report from Hafsúlan: We started a second time still in perfect weather and a mirrored calm sea. It did not take us long time until the first Harbor Porpoises surfaced. We stopped shortly but decided to go further out in the hope to spot a bigger species again. Just a few minutes later we passed a second pod of Harbor Porpoises but the same time we got the message from another boat that they found a Minke Whale. We went straight there and this was a great decision. This time the Minke Whale surfaced many times around us it seemed even to circle around the boat, staying not more than 5 meter away!!! WOW! And we could hear the blows of the whale loud and clear. Just when we planned to head back towards Reykjavík a group of 5 Harbor Porpoises surfaced between us and the Minke Whale and suddenly we spotted a second individual a bit further away!! Two different kinds of whales in the same area around us, coming so close!!! This was amazing. On the way back we stopped at Akurey to visit the puffins before we went from board again. Great day, beautiful weather and amazing whales!
Tour at 0900
Report from Hafsúlan: It was again a very calm morning with beautiful sunshine when we left Reykjavík older harbor today. The sea was extra ordinary calm so we had the best conditions to search for whales. We could see very far out into the bay and this turned out to be very useful for us as the Minke Whales seemed to be not very easy to spot on this tour. Still it was great to be out there with 7 up to 10 individuals surfacing in different directions around us. During the whole tour we had to be ready to be fast in spotting them until in the end one came really close to our boat and we got a great view on it! It was our luck that we could see so far, so we got a great impression of busy surfacing Minke Whales and in between we had some Harbor Porpoises during the trip. We ended the tour having a short stop at the Puffin Colony Akurey in front of Reykjavík. Challenging and impressive start in a beautiful day out in our home bay!