FRIDAY, 4 AUGUST 2017

Tour at 19:00

Report from Hafsulan: Sea conditions were prestine with minimum swell height and almost no wind. Also, some sun shining on the water as well as some of the landscape around us made for some really scenic tour. After only about 20 minutes we spotted a minke whale on our left in the direction of Esja. As we got closer, this individual was not shying away and we could stay with it for a while. This was a really cool start into the tour and after about 15 to 20 minutes of staying with it, we decided to continue on and find more animals in the bay. As we spotted another minke and wanted to get closer, we suddenly were surprised by white-beaked dolphins on our right. As we wanted to show our passengers the dolphins we turned and got closer to this pod of around 5 individuals. This pod was really calm and seemed to be resting, although not put off by our presence. Following these dolphins for a while we started noticing patches of disturbed water caused by schooling mackerels. This must have attracted more dolphins as we soon saw another two pods coming from different directions. One pod was a pod of around 4 individuals, the other one 5 maybe 6. This was awesome and we continued to observe these animals swimming virtually all around us. Some individuals we even leaping and sometimes head slapping. At some point we decided to continue searching for whales. while still enjoying the company of the dolphins. Just before turning around we had another minke whale pop up a little in the distance, so we got a little closer to observe it, although never getting closer than 150m. Due to the great conditions we saw minkes and dolphins throughout the trip far in the distance even on our way back. This was an awesome trip with conditions that couldn´t have been any better! 

- Friedrich Rittner

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: The weather was even more beautiful than this morning, the sun was breaking out between the clouds casting light on the landscape around us. The first sighing of the tour was a minke whale, it was spotted after only 25 minutes sailing! It never went for long dives, so which made it so easy for us to follow it and sometimes we got so amazing looks at it. While watching this minke we spotted a pod of 4-5 harbour porpoises and three other minke whales further south. After a great time with the minke we decided to have a look at one of the other three minke whales in the area. On the way out we spotted two other minke whales at a distance but we kept on going in hope to find the dolphins further out. Finally we found the white beaked dolphins and many of them! At least 4 pods of dolphins were seen with at least 25 individuals! They leaped, breached, and swam right next to the boat! 

-Sigurlaug Sigurdardottir

Tour at 14:00

Report from Hafsulan: Todays conditions were fantastic with minimum swell height and almost no wind. Right out the gate we spotted a minke whale about 15 minutes into our tour. This minke seemed very calm and perhaps feeding amongst some patches of jumping mackerel and we got a really good look at his individual. We saw many of these patches of mackerel stirring up the water, which we were even able to hear sometimes. As we continued our tour, we were able to spot a pod of about 4 white-beaked dolphins, although these guys seemed much more calm and perhaps resting, so we never got too close to them and left them after about 15 minutes. For the rest of the tour we were sailing the area and spotted and stayed with more minke whales. We once even had two minke whales within 100m from our boat, about 30 meters from one another. Even on our way back we spotted some minkes from a distance. Todays sightings coupled with such perfect conditions made this a really awesome day!

- Friedrich Rittner

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: What an awesome day we have! Lack of wind is not something what we can experience often on Iceland. Just after passing located close to city island Engey we started our adventure. First we noticed strong smell of fish in the air and spots of 'boiling' water full of very active mackerel. It's bad thing for puffins because mackerel will eat all smaller fish but soon whales will came to feed on it. First one attracted by this fish was minke whale. 3 individuals we found in the area between Engey and Grotta close to fish activity. Whales were a little elusive but we still had chance to spend good time with them. Further on, after seeing more minkes in distance we spotted white-beaked dolphins. Two pods of them, around 10 - 15 individuals were traveling together and later split in two groups going in different directions. We spend with this dolphins rest of our time till we needed to go back to harbour. Beside cetaceans our best and most cute animal of the day was puffling - chick of atlantic puffin!

- Ewa Malinowska

Tour at 10:00

Report from Hafsúlan: No one would complain if it were like this every day. The water surface was almost like a mirror except for the few spots where we had large shoals of thousands of individuals of a fish species called mackerel wiggling at the water surface. This was awesome to see and when we went through the shoal with our boat we could also smell the fish and hear their hectic movements. Puffins were all around us as well and a short time after passing the lighthouse Grotta we also encountered our first cetaceans, 2 minke whales! They were so easy to watch in this calm weather, moving very slowly yet still surfacing regularily. When they went for a longer dive we decided to head further out and let them be. We spotted a very large pod of at least 15 white-beaked dolphins. They were milling, so moving together at a slow pace. What made the encounter very special was that all of our passengers on board stopped talking once we got close to the dolphins. Everyone just enjoyed this emotional experience with all of their senses, watching AND listening to the nature all around them. Although we had already really enjoyed this trip, we got spoiled on our way back, encountering another 2 minke whales, a harbour porpoise traveling alongside our boat, then a second pod of 7 white-beaked dolphins and finally another minke whale very close to the island Akurey. A really special tour not just for the passengers but also for myself as I had taken my sister along on this trip and this was her first time seeing whales and dolphins and the joy was just all over her face!

- Sabrina Voswinkel

Tour at 9:00

Report from Eldey: The weather looked amazing, overcast but little to no wind, which is always nice for comfort and spotting.
It has been rather difficult the last week with few sightings, so we were thinking about trying a new area and might mean we ended at a different harbour.
However, without having to travel far we started to see flocks of birds and splashes to the west. White-beaked dolphins! they were amazing, at least 4 pods came together with maybe 20-30 dolphins in total.
They came and bow rided a little and surfaced many times close to the boat for great photographs to be taken. They soon started to seperate and 1 pod of 8-10 dolphins were the best as they all surfaced at the same time.  
After a long and wonderful encounter with teh dolphins we started to see the minke whales, the first was slowly surfacing, all the animals looking so relaxed this morning. we were able to see it many times but then start to head home. 
On teh way home we saw another 3 minke whales. It was great to see the bay productive again with not only the minkes and dolphins but with the diverse birdlife also. A very nice morning tour.  

- Sigurlaug Sigurdardottir 

Birds seen on today's tours: Northern Gannet, Atlantic Puffin, Kittiwake, Common Guillemot, Arctic Skua and Northern Fulmar.

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. There is little wind but a bit cloudy. Hope you are able to join us on our search of these magnificent animals