FRIDAY, 3 JUNE 2016

Tour at 17.00

Report from Eldey: Flat seas, calm winds and a nearly summer afternoon. We couldn't have asked for better conditions to go whale watching. As soon as we left the harbour, we received the message that a humpback whale was spotted a little far away from the coast, so we prepared ourselves to go and check for it. But the seas had another plans for us, at least for the very beginning of our tour. About 30 minutes after our departure we spotted a 10-12 white beaked dolphins. We approached them and we stayed a little gazing those magnificent animals. They were so close that we also had the opportunity to distinguish their amazing white and gray bands that they have all around their bodies! We continued our sailing to the humpback, but we had to stop ourselves again as we detected the presence of 2 spectacular minke whales who were surfacing, again, really close to our boat. As soon as the we lost the trail of this little ones, we continued our travel in search for the sneaky humpback. It took a while, but it didn't care too much. The day was too beautiful for that so we just waited a little. Waiting on a sunny day. And again, all of a sudden, we spotted at last the blow of the humpback whale in the horizon. We approached it really carefully, and we were really happy to realize that we were, actually staring at Picasso, one of our most charismatic humpys! It gave us some awesome surfacings and very majestic blows. At the same time, another minke whale appeared in the same area. The trip was coming to it's end when we spotted a breaching pod of white beaked dolphins, very far away from us. We went towards it, and we saw 2 more minke whales surfacing, again, really close to our vessel. By the time we got to the dolphins, they had already ceased jumping, but we still managed to see 8-10 of them swimming really calm on the surface. The sea was really alive this afternoon, and we were lucky enough to share this thrilling experience with our passengers!

- Alberto Alejandro

Tour at 14:00

Report from Eldey: The conditions continued to be excellent when we sailed out this afternoon; blue, sunny sky, crisp sea air and almost no wind. Soon we saw a small pod of harbour porpoises, about 3-5 individuals and were watching them passing by, while we sailed further out into the bay. We had heard from our other boat Elding that they had seen a pod of 5-7 white-beaked dolphins and went to check them out. It was amazing, the dolphins stayed really close to the boat so that everyone could see their white beaks and beautiful collorations. The super clear ocean made it possible to even spot them when they were diving all around us. We stayed with this pod for a while when we saw a lot of splashes in the distance and dolphins leaping out of the water and showing truely artistic behaviours. It was hard to tell how many there actually were, because the dolphins stopped when we came closer. But then another pod a bit further out started their own show so to speak and the pod we just had left joined in behind us. What a spectacle! It was really hard to decide where to look, because something was happening everywhere. We then decided to look a bit further for other wildlife and soon spotted a minke whale. Everyone could see it surfacing a couple of times and then unexpectedly it showed it's snout and it's beautiful body directly next to the boat. The white-beaked dolphins still continued to put on a great show so we decided to head back to them for a while before it was time for us to head home. On our way back we saw another minke whale in the distance and 2-4 harbour porpoises. This really has been a fabolous tour with incredible white-beaked dolphins.

- Barbara Neubarth

Tour at 13.00

Report from Elding: We could not have asked for a better day to go out whale watching! Sunny, warm and almost no wind. I think none of the passengers even had to wear an overall. In other words, perfect conditions to sight some cetaceans. On our way out in the bay, a small pod of harbour porpoises showed up but they were quite far from us so it was difficult to estimate the number of them and for the passengers to see them. Compared to the morning tour with Elding, this tour started off a bit calm in the main spotting area but as it’s told “you should never say never”. The next species to show up was a minke whale about 800 m from the boat. We headed towards its direction and enjoyed the presence of this minke whale for a while. The captain turned off the engine so all the passengers could hear the blow from the minke whale. Really impressing! We were told that another boat had seen a blow from a humpback whale, so we headed towards that area. Unfortunately, the humpback whale didn’t show up, but instead we saw at least 4 more minke whales and at least 2 pods of white beaked dolphins showed up, at least 20 indivduals . They were swimming really close to the boat and also leaping. The water was so clear that you could see them swimming under the surface. I think all the passengers were really happy to encounter these animals so close. Just before we were to head back to Reykjavik again, another pod of white beaked dolphins showed up about 800-1000 m from our boat and started to breach. Suddenly, the two pods of dolphins just next to us also started breaching. Just incredible! This is a typical behaviour of dolphins when they want to communicate with each other. Estimated at least 50 dolphins close and far seen on this trip. Really amazing to end this tour with this spectacular show!

- Johanna Bergman

Tour at 10.00

Report from Eldey: Sea conditions and weather were amazing on the morning tour. After half an hour ride we encountered briefly a small pod of harbour porpoises. I am not sure about the number but I saw at least 2 of them. Also most of the passengers could not see them very well. Once on the bay we got some confirmation from other boats there were some minke whales in the area so we headed towards their location. Also we got some confirmation from the captain he could see one minke far in the distance. The visibility was extremely good today. As soon as we got to the place we could see at least 3 minke whales traveling in different directions and going for deep dives every now and then. Some of them got really close to the boat! Also we spotted a pod of about 8-10 white-beaked dolphins swimming around the boat. We also saw a calf with them. It was very cute and people were really excited about it. After that, we got a message from another boat that they saw a humpback whale so we headed to their position. On the way our captain saw another minke whale between the two boats. In the end, there was no humpback whale but we could see at least 4 minke whales swimming in different directions too. We stayed there until we ran out of time and we went back home. I think this tour was a really good tour and people were really satisfied!

- Jorge Pascual

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: We started the tour in the most beautiful and mysterious weather that we have seen since last summer. The cold evening created a mist over the sea. The sea was like a mirror, very rare for the North Atlantic Ocean. We sailed out through the eerie mist, watching the birds fly by and seeing their reflection in calm seas. It took us 30 minutes before we came across an area with white-beaked dolphins, about 2 pods of up to 15 dolphins. They soon left the area but we could see in the distance an area with hundreds of seabirds and 5-7 minke whales surfacing to breath. We got to the area and turned off the engines. For 20 minutes we watched the whales surfacing around us popping up both close and far. We also saw 20-30 harbour porpoises throughout the tour, which was also an incredible sight to see. All in all an amazing and beautiful tour to be out on the ocean.

- Megan Whittaker 

Bird species seen on today´s tour: northern fulmar, arctic tern, atlantic puffin, black guillemot, common guillemot, manx shearwater, kittiwake, eider duck, lesser black-backed gull, arctic skua

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out on this beautiful and sunny day from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. There is no wind and sunny and warm. Hope you will come and join us in the search for all the wild life in Faxabay.