Friday, 08 August 2014

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The tour started with a bit of rain and the wind was even picking up a bit. Later it was dry and we saw the orange light at the sky. We began our sighting series with a pod of white-beaked dolphins and bit later a second one in total of up to 9 individuals including juveniles. Some of them have been breaching and leaping in the distance and we saw them surfing together in one wave or swimming relatively close that we had a good look at them. After a while we continued and we found more and more birds. The northern gannets were diving all around us and in between them emerged from time to time a minke whale. It turned out that one of the at least 3 up to 5 whales was "Base Sqn" and suddenly a pair of 2 harbour porpoises showed up passing calmly along side the boat surfacing many times. We had many chances to admire this 3 species of cetacean out in Faxaflói and as well the spectacular plunge feeding of the gannets was worth being out in the white crested sea.

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 14:00Report from Elding: given the difficult tour in the morning, we decided we might as well check out another area so we went in the direction of Akranes. However, nothing was spotted along the way except a part of a back that came up once or twice and probably belonged to a harbour porpoise. Then we got the message from some other boats that they had several minke whales in an area more south than this morning so we went there, albeit slowly as the wind did not allow anything else. Once we arrived, we were delighted to find at least 4 minke whales in addition to perhaps 5-10 harbour porpoises filling themselves up in an area that the fishfinder told us was chock-full of fish. We had several close-approaches and some excellent sightings, which were most welcomed after the different tour we had had in the morning.- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The weather and sea condition were the same as on the 9 o'clock tour and so it was not so easy to spot any irregularity on a moved ocean surface with a lot of white caps but even though we managed to find 3 species of cetaceans out in Faxaflói. First 6-8 travelling white-beaked dolphins were to be watched but as they didn't show any interest in us we went on after some looks at them and trained our patience. Finally it paid off when we entered a very food rich area of a lot of birds and 4-5 minke whales feeding. Sometimes there emerged four at once and in very short time interval and a small space and some very close to our boat. One of this close up views was "Base Sqn" with a missing square form at the base of the dorsal fin. As they came up very steep lifting the tip of their head above the water surface we could see their white lower jaw and one even showed us once its white baleens while closing its mouth by coming up. We could also see several times their characteristic white patch on their flipper through the water which is always a highlight. For a glimpse in between this feeding feast a harbour porpoise appeared for a moment. So we had a great tour despite the rougher sea.

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 10:00Report from Elding: we went out to an area where we have usually had much luck but there were already several other boats there with some animals. As we did not want to add to the crowd, we decided to go and search somewhere else. We searched towards land and after a while we did see 1 minke whale but we only saw it twice and then it was gone. 2 harbour porpoises showed themselves once each but otherwise it was a difficult and disappointing tour due to the northeastern wind. We did encounter 2-4 white-beaked dolphins enroute back though but even if they were swimming slowly, they were elusive and disappeared after a minute or two. As as result of all this, we offered our passengers complimentary return tickets so that they can come whale-watching with us again free of charge within the next two years.- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Wind and swell was announced and so we found a white caped sea but some patches of blue sky were visible where the sun was shining through. We even had a good visibility up to Snæfellsjökull at the horizon. We were leaving the harbour with a cool north easterly wind and found more than 10 white-beaked dolphins which were travelling very fast and leaping to have less friction in the air than under water. Then they have been milling and surfing in the waves and for a short moment some of them were even in the bow wave, so also visible under water. There was as well an elusive minke whale but we noticed mainly its blow and not much of its body was seen in the waves.

- Carine Zimmermann

Birds seen on today's tours include: Northern gannets, manx shearwaters, puffins, common guillemots, arctic terns, fulmars, glaucous gull, black-backed gulls, kittiwakes, great skua, arctic skua, cormorant, eider ducks and whimbrel.