Monday, 21 July 2014

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: The sun was peaking out from the clouds as we headed out this evening. After sailing for about a hour we spotted a Minke Whale. The animal surfaced 2-3 times before it took a deeper dive and after we searched for some time we decided to head further as it seemed like the minke had swam away. As we searched while we watched the amazing pink and orange sunset the 2nd Minke whale was spotted in the distance. We headed towards the animal which surfaced slowly around the same area. This animal seemed to be alot calmer and we were able to see it very close and often as it surfaced many times in a row around the boat. The minke was quite sneaky as it always seemed to surface behinde us after taking a deeper dive, but thanks to our passengers good spotting we managed to see it! As we headed home, Bjarni and Þorgils our musicians, kept us entertained with some jokes and music! It was a nice and calm tour in the midnight sun, with a friendly minke and some great music.

- Freydís Ósk

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: we started this tour with a pod of circa 10 White-beaked Dolphins that were no doubt feeding, crossing and zig-zagging at a fast rate of knots as if they were chasing something under the surface in a single spot, which was quite a show to see. Then they took off and travelled fast towards Hvalfjörður, eventually going under the surface and disappearing. After that we found 2 Minke Whales but they were elusive and disappeared all too quickly. But then on the way back we came across our second pod of dolphins and I dare to say that those were the very best dolphins that we had seen today for they were very interactive with the boat, bowrided and were nothing but joy - a perfect end to this afternoon tour!

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: The sea was calm as a mirror as we left the harbor this afternoon. It was warm and the sun reached out between the clouds now and then. After only 40 minutes, the first cetaceans were spotted, White-Beaked Dolphins.  It looked like we had 2 pods around the boat, each with 7-8 individuals. They were traveling all around us and even swimming under the boat few times. They were very lively, sometimes leaping out of the water in front of the boat. While we were enjoying the Dolphins we spotted two Minke Whales not so far from us and after a while with the dolphins, we decided to try to get a better look at the Minke Whales. They were very calm and thus easy to follow. One of them surfaced for few times very close to the boat, about 100-200 meters away. The air was so still that we could clearly hear the sound of its breath and sometimes even smell it´s breath.

- Sigurlaug

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: There was a bit more wind as we left for the afternoon tour, but other than that the sighting conditions were still very good. And so we started our tour off with an amazing sighting of a Minke Whale. We saw it roll at the surface and watched what seemed to be multiple instances of feeding right at the surface. We got many incredible looks at the upper jaw and whole head of this animal as it was slowly skimming along the surface. It also repeatedly swam right up towards our boat and brought half of its fluke out of the water as it rolled over beneath the surface. In total we saw at least 4-6 different minke whales on this tour and some of them came quite close to us. But the second highlight was the large pod of White-Beaked Dolphins that we found about halfway through the trip. There were 10-15 animals and they were very active. We saw them leaping out of the water, surfing the wake of "Elding", racing right underneath our boat and porpoising through the waves all around us. A truly amazing trip - made even better by the dramatic clouds and beautiful lighting of the surroundings!

- Linda

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: It only took us about 30 minutes to spot the first cetacean of the tour, 1 Minke Whale, the sea was so calm that we were able to spot it from a great distance. We traveled towards it and when we got close to it we noticed that there were at least 3 Minke Whales in that area! We had a great time with these Minke whales, sometimes they came quite close to us so we were even able to hear the sound of their breath! We headed a bit further out and got to another area with 2 Minke Whales and we were just as lucky with those ones. While we enjoyed the company of these friendly Minke Whales we got news about a group of Dolphins a bit further out. We wanted to check that out and when we arrived we saw a group of 7-8 White-Beaked Dolphins traveling slowly together. They surfaced all around us, sometimes very close and some of them even went under the boat. After a good time with these dolphins we spotted 1 Minke whale that we tried to get a better look at but it was more elusive than the other Minke whales that we had seen in the beginning of the tour. On our way back to the harbor we sailed closely past a puffin colony wich was a wonderfull end for that very nice tour on the Faxaflói Bay.

- Sigurlaug

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: our first Minke Whale out of a total of 4-6 was a very good one but it did spend a lot of time underwater so in the end we got a bit tired of waiting for it. Hence, when we got the news from Elding II that they had a small but docile group of White-beaked Dolphins some distance away, we left and went there. We never saw those dolphins as they had vanished by the time we arrived but in their turn we saw an excellent Minke Whale that was totally easy going; for a while it hang out relatively close to the back of the boat, at times as if it had no plans of diving down again, it rather lolled somehow on the surface while possibly keeping an eye on us. Close by were some fishing boat; one of them a tiny Icelandic 'trilla' and the other one Elding II doing sea angling. We left the Minke, paid the boats a bit of visit, and ended the adventure by visiting briefly a small pod of dolphins that another boat had let us know of.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Birds seen on todays tours include: Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Black-Backed Gulls, Common Guillemots, Razorbills, Northern Gannets, Manx Shearwaters, Atlantic Puffins, Arctic Terns, Arctic Skuas & Great Skuas.