Monday, 24 August 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The weather could not get any better than tonight and with the flat sea it was easy to spot animals on the tour even from a long distance. Our tour started with the pod of PILOT WHALES that Elding had already seen on both of their tours. It was amazing to see 40-55 pilot whales traveling passed our boat within 100 meters distance! It was hard to leave the pilot whales but we really wanted to keep on going and hopefully find other animals. As soon as we decided to go further out we spotted a another animals, a minke whale, we only spent about 5 minuets with it before we kept on going. We wanted to try to see the humpback whale again and on our way to there we saw many minke whales, in the whole tour 8-10 individuals, they seemed to be everywhere around. We were able to find the humpback whale again and spent over 20 minutes with it and got really good look at it. It was wonderful to see how the whale did not care about our boat at all because it was relaxing, laying at the surface for few minutes within 100 meters from our boat. We also noticed three minke whales in the area around the humpback whale.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: Spurred on by a brilliant morning and with much better weather, it was dry and much flatter, we were in a great mood sailing out. The humpback whale from the morning was in a similar location so it took us another hour to get there, in the morning the whale was surrounded by dolphins but here it was surrounded by minke whales. There were three next to the humpback and three more in the surrounding area too! The humpback was mostly resting but even though it wasn´t very active at the surface we always had the minkes to increase the activity in the area. The humpback was very calm around us and was swimming close to the surface so we could see its entire body below, and often lifting the tail high into the air on dives. Memories of the special species this morning drove us on to find them, we searched all across the area we predicted they would be but never found them... well you can´t win them all I guess... but wait! The whale watching doesn't´t end until we are all on land! Close to land, just 20 minutes from the city we found that same pod of pilot whales! Still around 30 with calves and juveniles alongside the adults we followed them in the sunshine across the flat blue ocean, still being very active and lifting their tails high into the air for us. This was a spectacular end to my personal season. My last tour for Elding has ended with happy passengers, a happy crew and a happy Jack.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: As we went out from Reykjavík again, the rain stopped and the wind calmed down leaving only small wavelets and little bit of swell for us. First, we spotted a minke whale after about 45 min from the harbour. We watched it surfacing around as for a few minutes and as it was heading away from us, we moved on. After a short while of searching we saw a large blow and the back of a humpback whale in some distance and headed towards it to get a closer look. On the way there were saw 3-4 more minke whales and finally were welcomed by the humpback whale Þröstur rolling on the side and slapping on of its pectoral fins on the water surface. We stayed with Þröstur a while and also got to see a few fluke ups and tail slaps before we left it alone to look for something else. We saw a total of 4-5 more minke whales as we were slowly turning back to the harbour and caught a glimpse of a group of 4-6 white-beaked dolphins. We only saw them coming up a couple of times before they disappeared and we went back to the harbour. 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: This was a very wet tour with a constant supply of rain this morning, it´s a good job that whales are wet enough already as our sightings were not harmed by a wet journey. The sea was quite flat thankfully which made the sighting conditions very nice. In recent days we have been having to travel very far out into the bay to find whales and dolphins, this day was the same as we were around an hour out of the harbour before we were rewarded with a double sighting of a humpback whale and a pod of 8 white-beaked dolphins. The dolphins were being a little cruel today as they were swarming around the humpback and chasing it around, clearly annoying the whale we were watching. This in nature in its true form, it can be as cruel as it is beautiful! Eventually the dolphins grew bored of the whale and departed but we had more time with the humpback whale as it travelled to find fish and then fed on the fish close to our boat. We left this humpback after some time hoping to find something else. We spotted something is the distance which we thought were dolphins at first but as we grew closer this was something different.... PILOT WHALES! This rare species seen on 0.14% of tours (was also my first time seeing them!) was fantastic, a pod of 30 which was spy hopping, fluking, fluke slapping and head slapping often meaning it was a feast for the eyes! This was a magical experience which is something that I will personally not forget.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We headed out from Reykjavík this morning with some wind, lots of rain and an overcast sky. After about 50 min we spotted two minke whales and saw them surfacing a few times. However, it was difficult to keep track on them so we moved on. Only a couple of minutes later we saw another minke whale bit it also disappeared quickly. So we kept searching and soon saw a few white-beaked dolphins jumping out of the water in some distance causing large splashes. Unfortunately they also quickly disappeared when we got closer, so it's difficult to tell but it probably was 4-5 animals in this pod. As we were looking for the dolphins, our Captain saw a large blow and as we approached the area we saw a humpback whale together with another group of 4-6 white-beaked dolphins. The humpback was "our" beloved Þröstur which we have seen on many tours over the last weeks. It was feeding together with the dolphins and a large flock of different bird species. We saw it lunging and going for fives so that we got to see a few fluke ups, while the dolphins were leaping and going underneath the boat to check us out. Even though the weather was total crap, the animals still made this a great tour! 

- Hanna Michel

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, Atlantic puffins, lesser black-backed gulls, kittiwakes, common guillemots, razorbills and Arctic skuas.