Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: The wind had calmed down this evening and it had gotten a bit warmer. This time, we stopped at Lundey the puffin island and found a few puffins, mostly sitting on the surface of the sea. We then headed towards the area where we had found all the minke whales earlier today. After a while we saw a minke whale surface right in front of us about two hundred meters away. We waited for it to come up again but unfortunately it seemed to have disappeared and we did not see it again. We kept on looking and finally decided to go further. Again, a minke whale was spotted but this time it was quite far away. This one too only came up once and then disappeared. Quite frustrating. Just before heading back to the harbour yet another minke whale surfaced in front of us. We got to see it three or four times until we lost it and had to leave for Reykjavík. On the way back, Bjarni played the guitar and sang for our passengers down in the saloon which was very cozy. The sightings this evening were very few but there's nothing to do about that. After all we are visitors in the natural habitat of those animals. Hopefully they will be in a better whale watching mood tomorrow.
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúla: It was very interesting to look over the bay this afternoon. At some places it was raining and grey clouds around but then at other places the sun was shining. We went were we saw the dolphins and whales from the previous tour. We spotted two minke whales in this tour but both times we only saw the dorsal fin once and then it was gone. The sea was relatively calm but it was raining on and off and at some point it was raining straight in our faces due to the wind. We did not find any cetaceans to observe to we gave out complimentary tickets and hope to see the whales again soon.
-Sveinn Guðmundsson
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: The wind was still strong as we left Reykjavík in the afternoon. Again we started of in Akurey since it was high tide and we could thus get very close to the island. We then headed out and this time it didn't take us as long to spot something. A minke whale popped up on the port side of the boat and surfaced several times. From then on the search was quite effortless with minke whales coming up here and there, some quite close to the boat, others further away, some showing off, others being elusive. All in all there must have been around 7 minke whales throughout the tour. There were lots of birds in the bay as well, northern gannets, puffins far out on the bay, Arctic terns and fulmars which were flying so close you could almost touch them! After having enjoyed the company of the beautiful minke whales for most of the tour, we decided to head a bit further to try our luck with the white-beaked dolphins but did not succeed. It was a good tour with many good minke whale sightings and lots of birds. The wind calmed down too and the sun even came out for a moment!
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúla: After visiting Akurey the puffin Island we headed out to search for the whales. We saw lot of birds out on the bay, gannets, fulmars, puffins among other species so we knew that there was some food in the area. We found a very nice pod of white-beaked dolphins. They came quite close to the boat and stayed with us for a while, allowing us to see the beautiful pattern on their body. When we were watching the dolphins and all the sea birds we saw few harbour porpoises around but they were very shy and swam away. Later on we found a minke whale. We saw it surfacing few times before it took a deep dive and swam away. So all in all a nice afternoon out on Faxaflói.
-Sveinn Guðmundsson
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: It was cloudy as we left the old harbour of Reykjavík this morning. The wind was blowing from the south so it was not cold at all and we stopped at Akurey the puffin island before heading further out. We had had extraordinarily few puffins in the puffin islands for the past day but were delighted to see that it had improved a bit this morning. It took us a long while to find the first white-beaked dolphins and once we spotted them they proved to be quite elusive, not surfacing often and only showing the top of their dorsal fins. Luckily, we saw a minke whale surface in the distance. We tried to approach it carefully and managed to get a very good look at it as it came up in front of our boat, blowing vigorously out of its blow hole for every one to hear. We had a few more dolphin sightings but most of them were quite poor. On our way back to Reykjavík we spotted a sole harbour porpoise that came up three times before disappearing. All in all this morning's tour was quite disappointing despite there being lots of feeding birds in the bay.
-Arnór TumiTour at 9:00Report from Hafsúlan: The wind was blowing and the clouds covered up the sun but it still wasn't that could as we headed out. We searched for quite some time and saw a Minke Whale surfacing but it dissappeared quicker than it surfaced. We kept on searching and after some time we found a few pods White-beaked Dolphins that were interacting with each other, there must have been around 30 animals there! they jumped out af the ocean and we could see them everywhere around us. 4 of them even breached ( jumped out af the ocean and slammed their body to the surface as they landed, making a big splash) only around 25-35 meters away from the boat, all at the same time! The dolphins were quite impressive and we had alot of fun watching them for some time, but then we decided to head further out and try our luck in finding something else, maybe something bigger. but unfortunatly the sightings were none and soon it was time to head back to the harbour. On our way back we saw distributed pod's of the White-beaked dolphins so they both started and ended the tour with us! before we got to the harbour we stopped at Akurey, one of the Puffin Islands and took a look at their home. All in all the tour was good, we did get a great show from around 30 dolphins that were playful and a delightful sighting! -Freydís Ósk Hjörvarsdóttir
Birds seen on today's tours include: Puffins, Arctic terns, fulmars, lesser black backed gulls, greater black backed gulls, black guillemots, common guillemots, black headed gulls, northern gannets, kittiwakes, eider ducks, Arctic skuas,