Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Today we had a great start with a large pod of harbour porpoises, probably around 10 animals, after only about 15-20 min of sailing. At this time of year, it doesn't happen very often to encounter cetaceans so close to Reykjavík, even though harbour porpoises are a coastal dwelling species as the name implies. We didn't spend much time following them, but still watched them for a few minutes traveling even closer towards land. We headed further out sticking close to the mountains to get some shelter from the strong winds. It took quite some time to find more cetaceans, probably more than two hours However, then we encountered a pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins that showed up only 50 m away from us. First, we only saw them a few times surfing in the waves before they disappeared for a while. Another whale watching boat joined us in our search and found them again. We managed to follow them for some time, and then the dolphins turned around and came right towards us. They were leaping next to us and swam around us just a few meters away. That was our reward for being so patient on today's tour! After a while the dolphins left the area and we started our way back to the harbour.
- Hanna Michel
Bird species seen on toady's tour include: european shags, common guillemots, kittiwake, Iceland gulls, and glaucous gulls.