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Friday, 12 August 2016

 

Tour at 19:00

Report from Elding: even with a bit of wind picking up from North-West, the conditions during our whale watching tour were still in our favor: no rain and considerably calm sea with a beautiful sunset on the clear horizon. The last tour finished like the last started, with awesome white-beaked dolphins! After about one hour of sailing, we encountered the same pod we had seen earlier, with mothers and cute calves. We counted at least 6-8 individuals. They were simply adorable, swimming under the boat, showing us their white bellies and leaping out from the water. We stayed with them for about half an hour, before continuing our journey out in Faxa Bay, but unfortunately we did not see any more cetaceans. Nevertheless, a beautiful sunset and entertainment on board from our troubadour made the rest of the time very worthwhile. A nice ending to a great dolphin day.

- Barbara Neubarth

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: Although we did our best, our passenegers didn't see any cetaceans on this tour :( The crew saw two individuals of minke whale in a distance but every time we would approach the area, we couldn't see animal any more. We had strong wind and choppy sea during the tour, which made spotting conditions a bit harder. Almost all the passengers exchanged their tickets for complimentary ones so hopefully next time they will be more lucky and see these beautiful animals. However, we enjoyed beautiful sunset, landscape, fresh air, interesting bird species we encountered during the tour and, for the end, some great rock music on board chosed by our captain :)

-Tena Šarčević

Tour at 14:00

Report from Eldey: The clouds had won the fight against the sun when we were sailing out this afternoon, but it was dry and considerably warm. Besides the wind was not too strong so that we could see very far and only a few long and rolling swells were causing a little movement on the boat. Almost everybody stayed outside from the beginning and after over an hour of sailing we saw a minke whale surfacing in front of us. Even though it turned out to be a bit shy, we could get a couple of really nice views of it. Then we heard of a pod of white-beaked dolphins on the radio and decided to head over there. We counted between 6-8 individuals, including 2 calves who started leaping out of the water and amazed us with their cuteness. Overall it was an adorable pod to watch. They were diving under the boat and leaping out of the water so that great pictures and a lovely dolphin encounter was almost guaranteed for all passengers. Then it was time for us to leave these beautiful dolphins and head back to the old harbour of Reykjavik. What a lovely afternoon.

- Barbara Neubarth

Tour at 13:00

Report from Elding: On this tour we found 3 minke whales. Two of them were a bit tricky to follow as they were diving for long time and changing direction very often. Third minke we could watch for longer time and closer. It was particulary nice to see it surfacing with its snout above sea surface. We also encountered a pod of around 6 white-beaked dolphins, of which few were calves. 

-Tena Šarčević

Tour at 10:00

Report from Eldey: We switched boats because we got a lot of bookings this morning. Eldey was big enough to hold our 132 passengers. Besides, it´s got plenty of space as it´s got capacity for 200 people. The weather and sea conditions were very good and that brought us in a good mood. All set up and ready to rock we started our journey. We never know what we´re going to find and this trip was not disappointing at all. After 30 minutes of sailing we found our first cetaceans! two pods of white-beaked dolphins! I counted at least 12 individuals. They performed different kinds of behaviour like: Bow riding (Riding the waves created by the bow of the boat) and leaping (jumping out of the water almost completely) and we also got to see a couple of proper calves! Those were the most active individuals. No surprise why. After the dolphin encounter we went out a bit further into the bay to look for more species. It did not take much. After 10 minutes the first couple of minke whales showed up! I think they were mainly traveling in the area. It might be also that they were chasing some shoals of fish since they were changing directions very frequently. After leaving these 2 we saw other 2 also moving from place to place. As we were running out of time we started to head back home. On the way back we saw other two minkes! So in general I counted at least 6 minke whales. Lovely tour with a lovely audience. 

- Jorge Pascual

Tour at 9:00

Report from Elding: We sailed out with amazing conditions there was sun and the water was very flat. Soon we encountered 2 Atlantic white beaked dolphins, the animals were a bit elusive and hard to follow, when all of the sudden 10 more white beaked dolphins appeared. They were chasing fish making big splashes and leaping. When we looked around there were at least 3 other groups of white beaked dolphins in the distance chasing fish and jumping. We saw splashes and dolphins all around and animals coming very close to the boat many times. After leaving the dolphins we had a nice encounter with a minke whale, it surfaced very frequently and not far from the boat. On our way back to Reykjavik we spotted two more groups of white beaked dolphins. A great tour with lots of dolphins all around!

- Anouk de Plaa

Birds species seen on the tours today: manx shearwater, atlantic puffin, black guillemot, common guillemot, lesser black-backed gull, kittiwake, northern fulmar, arctic skua, arctic tern.

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out from the old harbor in Reykjavík today. The weather is mild and good so make sure you are booked on the next whale watching tour today.