Friday, 2 September 2016

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: Some clouds had stolen their way into the crystal blue sky when we were sailing out in Faxa bay this early evening, but still the conditions remained good for whale watching. The first cetacean species that we spotted was a small pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises splashing in front of us. They were rather elusive and only a few passengers saw them so we continued further out. Soon the majestic northern gannets diving down caught our attention and within them our first minke whale. It surfaced quite close to the boat and changed its direction very frequently, likely feeding. Then we saw another two minke whale in the close distance and decided to check them out and luckily we did because one of them was lunge feeding. Everybody got really good views of the minkes and could take good pictures. After about half an hour we decided to continue our search for more wildlife in the bay, but did not spot anymore cetaceans. However the gannets continued to be amazing and entertained us on our way back to the old harbour of Reykjavik. A very nice evening on the water.

- Barbara Neubarth 

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: The wind had calmed down yet further from this morning which made for incredible conditions and visibility with the glorious Icelandic sunshine. Although we had left a little late it only took us a half hour to come across our first minke whale! This curious individual came up very close to the boat 3 times, and then appeared to change his mind and became very elusive. On our journey further into the bay we came across a pod of 3-5 harbour porpoises surfacing extremely calmly only 70 m in front of the boat - what a fantastically close view! They quickly ducked under the surface after 2 minutes of watching but we need not worry as we could see a big flock of dive bombing northern gannets, usually a sign of food and so more marine mammals. As we headed towards them we realised we had stumbled upon minke whale heaven; there must have been at least 6 within a kilometer of us! At one point we had at least 4 surface at all corners of the boat, amazing for the great number of passengers all around the top deck. After half an hour in the area we headed away and found a pod of 4-6 white-beaked dolphins. At first they were jumping and splashing but they quickly calmed down and unfortunately became elusive, so we let them have their space and began to head home. A second pod of harbour porpoises popped up on our journey back, just topping off a completely unforgettable tour!

- Ophelie Humphrey

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: The first cetaceans to be encountered today were two different pods of harbour porpoises that traveled towards Reykjavík as we were heading out. One pod consisted of 2-3 individuals, the other one of 6-8 animals. We got a nice look at these cute guys that created a lot of splashes traveling at high speed. As we went further out, we spotted a pod of 10 white-beaked dolphins that were jumping out of the water in the distance. We approached the very dispersed group until we had dolphins popping up all around us and sometimes coming towards us before they headed off. While watching the dolphins, on of our deckhands onboard saw a few big blows far away from us in the South of the Bay. We decided to go over there and check it out and everyone goy excited about which species this might be. However, we spent some time in the area and didn´t see any glimpse of a whale. Running out of patience, we moved on to look for a minke whale. They were being a bit tricky, only coming up once before going for deeper dives and changing the direction a lot. We finally got a good look at a minke whale after we had started to head back to the harbour. Inbetween our search for a minke whale, we also saw another group of 8-10 dolphins in the distance. 

- Hanna Michel

Status: RUNNING

Bird species seen on today´s tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, common guillemot, lesser black-backed gull, and manx shearwater. 

We are sailing out today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. It´s a cold but sunny morning. Hopefully you can join us today to see these amazing giants !