Friday, 24 August 2012

Tour at 17:00

A verry nice tour with good sightings of minke whales.

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: We headed to where we found the Minke Whales on the last tour and we were glad to find out they were closer to land. It was stunning, Minke Whale in the foreground and Reykjavík city in the background with the moody skies and rain showers above it. The Fulmars were wizzing over head too and Gannets everywhere plunging in to the water. Throughout the tour we must of seen 3-4 Minke Whales and an added bonus of a small pod of Harbour Porpoises as we got closer to the harbour. The rained stayed off us too untill the end which was great.

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We heard from our sister vessel Elding that they saw a minke whale very close to the harbour. We sailed in this area and we found two minke whales. They surfaced two or three times but than they disappeared. We continued our journey and we found another minke whale. Unfortunately this guy also disappeared relatively quickly. We searched around and we had many northern gannets around us. On the way back we found another minke whale and this whale was absolutely close to the boat and we could see it very good. And there was one more nice surprice on the way back - another minke whale. All in all we saw 5 minke whales on this tour.

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: The scenery was beautiful as we headed out into Faxaflói Bay today, the mountains and city really stood out with the moody skies and you could see the rain pouring everywhere except we were with was great. It did take us a while before we saw whales but we saw alot of birds on the way. We looking for the dolphins our other boat saw but they must of sped off somewhere chasing fish. The captain spotted one once but unfortunately it dove and disappeared. We then sailed towards Akranes and then towards the whalefjord (Hvalfjörður) which were it all happened must of seen at least 3-4 Minke Whales. Not all at the same time but one after another as we headed back to the harbour.

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This morning turned out to be the big dolphin morning! We spotted few pods of white-beaked dolphins and one of them was really fantastic! They were breaching a lot, sometimes few of them together, swimming under the boat and being very curious about our present. This was really amazing sighting. We saw one minke whale but it only surfaced twice before disappearing. We had lot of gannets everywhere in the bay today and there must have been lot of food for these big seabirds and the dolphins.

Birds seen on tour: Fulmars, gannets, guillemots, black backed gulls, glaucous gull, kittiwakes and eider ducks.