Friday, 29 August 2014

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It had been a great day so far with fantastic weather and we certainly didn´t want it stop this evening. There was still some rain but it was very light and our visibility was still very good across the bay. The day seemed to he getting harder though and our searching too much more effort than the last tours. But it paid off dividends as after just over an hour we found a minke whale. But this was a minke whale that deserves credit for its perfect behaviour, it had the perfect mix of calmness without being boring. In these calm seas it becomes very easy to see anything but this minke wanted to challenge us and so would constantly dive underneath the boat and resurface on our left, then right, then left and so on. But because it was so close by we could always get a great view of the whale. And this was a whale that we really had to leave by ourselves, it never showed any intention of leaving itself. But after a very long and successful sighting we headed home, then on the way back we ended up finding another minke whale! Of course as we were running out of time we only watched it for a short time before carrying on back to the city. A beautiful end for the final tour of this grateful guide.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 14:00

Report form Elding: This afternoon, it had gotten quite rainy and with the rise in humidity, if felt as if the temperature had dropped significantly from this morning. After a while, we saw a minke whale in the distance but as we approached it, it stopped surfacing and we lost it. As we sped up again, another minke whale surfaced really far away and we attempted to get close to that one. When we arrived where it had surfaced, it made us wait for quite a while until it finally surfaced on our port side and showed off very well. After having spent a decent amount of time with the minke whale, we headed further out and for a long time, did not manage to find anything. But in the end, we did spot two white-beaked dolphins that appeared to have separated from their pod and as we approached them, they seemed to always swim away from us so we decided to leave them alone. Maybe they were looking for some privacy? Anyway, on the way back, it started raining and everything seemed to have calmed down a bit from this morning, but nevertheless we did get some great sightings.

-Arnór Tumi

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sea conditions were nearly the same as the morning, which is great news! Though there was some rain, which isn´t great news but certainly nothing that the whales can´t handle. This tour started out nearly the same as the last with our first sighting being of harbour porpoise, this was much more like normal porpoise behaviour though as it was just a single one that only surfaced a few times before disappearing. Though this was a disappointment it would soon get much better as we managed to see four minke whales this afternoon! First of all there was a pair of whales and as there were two boats out we each took our own whale. Ours would turn out to be a good friend of Elding, a whale named "Base Sqn" which was the 7th time this month it was seen! Base Sqn was well behaved and allowed us a very long look with many close encounters. This was the best whale of the tour but the next two were still great eye candy, their black bodies contrasting against the pale ocean making for fantastic views.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: The weather was calm and nice as we headed out on the bay this morning. We knew that some animals had been seen on the bay as we got reports from the other whale watching boats so we headed towards these areas. First, we found two minke whales. They were feeding, mostly close to the surface and came up frequenly with around a kilometer between them. We got good close looks at both of them. Then we headed further out and found a pod of white-beaked dolphins. At first, there were around three or four of them together but later on, many more pods joined in from different directions and in the end, there must have been at least 15 of them together. Before we left, a third minke whale was spotted. It came up a few times relatively close to us and with that, we said good bye and headed back to the city. Good morning Faxaflói!

-Arnór Tumi

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: There were excellent whale watching conditions this morning, the sea was very flat and there was barely any wind. So this was a comfortable journey with some really beautiful weather in the bay. And this would be a really fantastic morning too, it was fantastic three species morning! And to top it all off all three species were great to see. The first was the smallest, the harbour porpoises. There were actually three pods seen in the tour but only the first was nice to see, it was single porpoise that was travelling slowly and actually came really close to the boat. Our second species after around an hour of sailing, it was our old friend the minke whale. This morning we saw two minke whales, the first we got to watch for about 20 minutes and was travelling very slowly. The second was around for shorter but when it did surface it was incredibly close to the boat. But we were not yet satisfied until we found something extra! And luckily we came across a large pod of white-beaked dolphins which was about 10-12 dolphins large with 3 calves included! They were travelling incredibly slowly and really giving us a fantastic sighting, we only spotted them because they were breaching out of the water too so we got to see some amazing actions from the dolphins.

Birds seen on today's tours include: Fulmars, puffins, arctic terns, common guillemots, northern gannets, lesser black-backed gulls, arctic skuas and kittiwakes