Friday, 17 July 2015

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: The sea conditions were getting pretty rough on this evening tour but the humpback whale we spotted completely made up for any roughness from the ocean! The humpback didnðt seem to mind us and just continued feeding and came close to our boat a couple of times. We spent all our time with the humpback and on the way back the winds picked up so much that I almost lost my hat a couple of times. I'm very proud of our passengers who took it all in stride and got a lot of good pictures of the fluke (tail) of the humpback. Man green and happy faces when we entered the harbour after an adventurous trip.

- Svala Jónsdóttir

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This evening, we headed back to the area where we had seen the humpback whale on the previous tour hoping to find this individual again. It took quite a while but we managed to find it feeding in the same area where we had left it before. It was feeding together with a flock of arctic terns before it started traveling slowly. Just as the Whale Watching Boat from Special Tours was leaving, the humpback whale started breaching and head-slapping. It breached twice and then slapped its head on the water surface three times. Spectacular! Then it started traveling again, but before we had to leave it breached another time! The perfect end of this tour!

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: In the afternoon we decided to head straight to the humpback whale that we encountered in the morning with winds even stronger than in the morning. On the way we tried to spot other animals, which was harder then usual, since the food seemed to have decreased in the bay. Even though we managed to spot 3 harbour porpoises traveling towards the harbour. Unfortunately we had no time to stop, but still most passengers managed to spot the very small marine mammals. We finally arrived in the area with the humpback whale from the morning tour. It seemed to have stopped resting, instead was milling. We enjoyed watching it until we decided to go back to the harbour. Just at that point it was breaching, only 20 meters away from the boat. After a second breach on the left side of the boat we had to leave it and go back home, with smiling faces all around the boat.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sea conditions were still rough when we sailed out on the afternoon tour. We of course headed straight away to the area with the humpback earlier today. That meant little bit more than an hour of travel. But it was well worth it! We even saw the humpback whale breaching in the distance before we got to it. Well on location the whale put on a real show for us. It breached right in front of us! Then it half breached again followed by pec-slapping (the whales flippers slapping against the surface). No one could leave this whale without a huge smile on their face! While we were watching the whale the first sooty shearwater of the season flew by. The tour also gave us short views of a minke whale before we got to the humpback whale and a single harbour porpoise on our way back. Amazing tour in rough sea, who could have foreseen that?!

- Marcus Bergström

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: On the morning tour we decided to start heading north in search of cetaceans. Unfortunately the weather was pretty rough, strong winds and strong swell with it. After we couldn't find an animal in this direction, we started traveling west, towards the area where we heard rumors about a humpback whale. It took quiet a long time to reach the location, but when we did, we found a juvenile HUMPBACK WHALE. The animal seemed to be resting, which gave us a very long time to enjoy it, and take pictures of this incredible creature. Several times it was going for very short dives where it showed us it's fluke. We stayed as long as possible until we had to head back to the harbour.

- Michaela Buchbauer

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Even though it looked very calm in the harbour, the sea conditions in Faxaflói were quite rough today. We still tried to make it as comfortable as possible for our passengers. This morning, we had to search for about 1.5 hours for cetaceans, until we finally spotted the big blow of a humpback whale. In order to allow everyone on board to get a closer look, we slowly approached this small individual, and we could watch it traveling slowly next to us. It rarely went for a deep dive but usually stayed close to the water surface so that we could still see it underwater. Unfortunately we were running out of time after a while and had to start heading back to the Old Harbour of Reykjavík.

- Hanna Michel

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, common guillemots, puffins, arctic skuas, great skuas, arctic terns, sooty shearwater, black-backed gulls.