Monday, 17 June 2013

Tour at 20:30

Unfortunately we cancelled the last tour of the day due to unfavourable weather conditions.

Tour at 17:00

In the evening, we sailed out once more and were facing quite windy conditions. After having an enjoyable stop at Akurey, one of the islands where the Atlantic Puffins breed, we directly sailed towards where we had seen the Minke Whale close by during the 1 pm tour. When we arrived in the area after just about 20 minutes, we spotted big splashes in a couple of kilometers distance catching our attention immediately. As we got closer, we were facing an amazing nature spectacle: we were facing a Minke Whale that was breaching and jumping about thirty times. Everyone on board was so happy to be a part of this and some of our passengers even started to sing. The whale approached us several times and surfaced just a few meters next to our boat so that we could see the whole body shining below the surface as it came closer. It was a very special tour that allowed us to see this rare behaviour and it was just wonderful to be a part of it.

- Hendrik Schultz

Tour at 14:00

We had a rather difficult tour. Although we saw many minkes they were very difficult to show, only showing up once or twice in the distance. We therefore gave our guests a complimentary ticket.

- Megan Witthaker

Tour at 13:00

On this afternoon's tour, we visited Akurey again to watch the Atlantic Puffins before heading further out towards faxa bay. There were plenty of them on and around the island and we enjoyed being so close to the "penguins of the north". When we sailed further, the wind had gotten a bit stronger. Therefore, the sea surface was a bit rough and spotting whales was not as easy as it would have been on a calm summer day. However, after about 50 minutes of patiently sailing and scanning the watersurface, we spotted a Minke Whale about 80 meters from our boat. The whale seemed to be quite busy feeding and we only saw it a couple of times before we decided to go on to search for something else. Again it took us some patience until we spotted another Minke Whale, but also this one disappeared after a couple of surfacings. We decided to not give up hope and on our way back to Reykjavik, Isabell, one of our crew members, spotted another Minke Whale just 5 meters next to our boat. Our captain Stefan slowed down immedeately to see whether the Minke would show up again. And there it was coming right towards us! It dived down under our boat and surfaced just 5 meters from us on the other side again. Many of us could see the whole body below the surface, which was an amazing experience. A tour that started a bit slow, but had a real highlight in its end.

- Hendrik Schultz

Tour at 10:00

We had a very nice tour and saw 4-5 minke whale, 3 came within 30m from us. Later in the tour also 10-15 dolphins with calves, bow riding and surfacing just meters from the boat.

- Megan Wittaker

Tour at 9:00Report from Hafsúlan: The morning weather was quiet although the ocean was a little bit wavy. We started the tour with a visit to Akurey, The Puffin Island and got a good look at the Atlantic Puffins as they were flying around and sitting on the island and ocean.After sailing for only about 15 minutes we saw our first Minke Whale which surfaced around 40 meters from the boat, we got a good look at him and soon we realized that there were two animals close to each other! We saw them surface for a couple of times before they headed their way. We sailed a little bit further and found 3 Minke Whales close to the area were we saw the other one's but just like the animals before, they surfaced for a few times but were very busy hunting and soon were gone. After some time sailing we saw another Minke and 2 more further away, so it was obvious that the area had a lot of Minke's. But after having amusing sightings of the Minke's and some patient waiting for their surfacing, we had to go back to the harbor. When we were were close to the harbor a Minke Whale surfaces right in front of the boat and we got a glance at it as it surfaced just behind the boat, so it was a great ending to a good tour with around 9 Minke Whales!-Freydís Ósk Hjörvarsdóttir

Birds seen on today's tours: Northern Gannets, Atlantic Puffins, Arctic Terns, Common Guillemots, Eider Ducks, Black-backed Gulls, Kittiwakes, Razorbills, Arctic Skuas, Great Skuas