Friday, 26 May 2017

Tour at 17:00

Report from Edley: As the previous two tours, we had very calm sea conditions which made it pretty easy to locate 4-5 harbour porpoises after about 1 hour of sailing. Unusally, we even slowed down to have a better look at them and watched them surface in the wake of the boat so everyone could clearly see them. Then we saw two minke whales, one after the other, but unfortunately both of them were a bit shy and were only seen twice before disappearing or staying underwater for ages. Both times we moved on, hoping to find another minke whale and so we did! It was sptted by another company but after heading to that area we got an amazing look and it and sometimes it would surface just 50 m away from us. We spend a while with this minke and then moved on to look for something else and found a group of 5-6 white-beaked dolphins! They were heading closer to land but going very slowly so it was not a big challenge to take pictures of them. While watchng the dolphins, we suddenly saw us surrounded by more and more birds, mainly the impressive northern gannets that started to plunge-dive into the water to catch fish. It was incredible to see and when we lost track of the dolphins we just spend a few minutes watching the gannets feed. On our way back one more minke whale was spotted by a passenger before we returned to the harbour!

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey. The sea was very calm and with cloud cover it made perfect condition for spotting cetaceans. It didn't take long till we found pod of 6 - 10 Harbour Porpoises and a Minke Whale. Whale was moving slowly, surfacing often what allowed everybody to take good look at it. It was very well known by us minke, named Shark. Between waiting for whale coming to surface again we enjoyed porpoises swimming around. In the same area we also saw another Minke whale in some distance around another whale-watching boats. After a while with a Minke, we decided to head in direction of flock of feeding birds, hoping to find another animals there. It was a good guess, because there was a Humpback Whale! Animal show itself few times before going for deeper dive from which came back breaching! Humpback repeated his jumps twice, after that still stayed close to us and at the end came very close and make dive under our boat! That was an amazing close encounter! 

- Ewa Malinowska

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey. We set off from Reykavik Old Harbour with flat calm seas and a little bit of cloud cover. Within 40 minutes of setting sail, we saw and smelt our first minke whale. The smell of the minke whale breath is unmistakable. Unfortunately, that minke was feeling shy, but before we knew it, we were surrounded by them. Everywhere we looked there were minke whales! Soon enough the harbour porpoises came out to play as well. The water was so calm that it was very easy for everyone onboard to see them. On our way back to port, we also got to see 5 white-beaked dolphins. These animals were very friendly and approached quite close to the boat. We also got to see the dolphins surfing in some our wake. Unfortunately, it was then time to go so we left the dolphins and returned to the harbour, but what an amazing day!

- Rachel Pool

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, lesser black-backed gull, kittiwake, Arctic tern, Atlantic puffin, common guillemot, razorbill, eider ducks, black-headed gull, Arctic skua and great skua.

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. It is a sunny and warm day with little to no wind. Hopefully you can all join us to see these magnificent giants in their natural habitat.