Monday, 07 April 2014

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The afternoon trip started out with some rain, just as the morning trip had ended. Later during the trip, however, the sky cleared and we got beautiful looks at the surrounding scenery and sunshine reflecting off the water surface. While following the blow of our first Humpback Whale we met a Minke Whale - the first one of 2-3 individuals we saw throughout the trip. After taking a look at a few surfacing´s we then moved on to the Humpback we had spotted before. A side from several close approaches to the boat it also showed us a beautiful lob-tail right next to us. The second Humpback whale delivered an even better show than the first one - another fluke lob-tailing high above the water, lots of beautiful dives and rolling. After seeing a flipper slapping in the distance we returned to the first Humpback again before heading in. Traveling between the different baleen whales we also managed to get a good look at 2-3 pods or Harbour Porpoises with 7 - 10 animals each. The trip back to Reykjavik offered some more beautiful looks at the scenery with impressive cloud formations and sun to round off another amazing trip.

-Linda/Megan

Tour at 9:00

Report from Hafsúlan: After a short sailing on this cloudy day we spotted two Minke whales swimming in the bay. They surfaced briefly but a couple of times they came quite high out of the water. We didn't stay with them for very long since they seemed to be in a rush to get some where else. We did get a good look, though, and were delighted with this short encounter. When we left the minkes we saw a blow further away so we decided to sail closer to see where it came from. When we reached the souce of the blow we saw that it belonged to a very busy Humpback whale. This was the same whale that was seen on yesterday's tour and it was there lunge feeding, spy hopping, rolling around and raising it's fluke over and over again. We shut of the engines of the boat and watched as the whale surfaced right beside us while circling the boat. It showed it's belly number of times and every one got a very good look. We knew of another humpback whale not far from this one so we had a quick look at that whale as well before we sailed back to Reykjavík harbour after an amazing tour.

-Soffia

Birds seen on today´s tour: Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Eider Ducks, Big flock of Geese, Common Guillemots, Razorbills, Glaucous Gulls, Black Backed Gulls, Gannet.