Monday, 24 June 2013

Tour at 20:30

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Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: First stop of this tour was Akurey, the Puffin Island where we got to see again many Puffins, they were so adorable so we stayed with them quite some minutes before we headed out into Faxa Bay. It took us a long time before we got the message from another whale watching boat that they had spotted Minke Whales so we sailed in their direction. When we arrived there, there was a big flock of feeding sea birds and some minutes later we had two Minke Whales on both sides of the boat. We got to see them quite a few times very close to the boat and even though we were late everyone was happy on the way back and it was a very nice end of the day.

-Lisa Hofmann

Tour at 14:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We sailed out in good conditions, with slightly less wind and calmer seas than this morning. As before we visited the puffins at Akurey and found lots of them sitting calmly on the sea and we got very close to them despite the low tide. Then we headed further out to sea and started our search for the cetaceans. At first we encountered only very elusive Minke whales, they would surface once or twice and then not show themselves again. This continued for a while until we got a very good look at some Harbour porpoises which surfaced close to the boat and followed us for a few minutes. But so far no really good looks at the larger cetaceans in the bay. When only a few minutes were left until we had to turn back and we had almost given up hope we suddenly spotted a minke close to the boat. It came up again very close and we got to see the blowhole and almost the whole back as it surfaced. Then straight after we thought we had lost the minke we spotted White-beaked dolphins ahead. They were very fun and were feeding just in front of the boat, breaching, travelling and swimming just beneath the surface. All in all an uneventful trip to begin with but with a fantastic ending with the delightful dolphins.

-Ívar Elí Sveinsson

Tour at 13:00:

Report from Elding: We headed out from Reykjavík. We decided to go straight out and look for some whales and stop in one of the puffins islands on the way back. We had been sailing for a very long time before we spotted our first Minke Whale. It only surface twice before heading down for a deeper dive. We waited for it to resurface but we didn't spot it again. The same thing happened a few times, spotting a whale that was going for a deep dive and not seeing it again. Then we spotted one Minke whale right in front of the boat which came up 3 times and it was a very big individual. After that we saw some more Minkes and the last one we saw was actually tail slapping! All in all we must have seen between 5-7 Minke Whales. On our way back we stopped in Akurey and enjoyed the beautiful puffins. Although this tour was uneventful in the beginning it turned to the better and ended with some beautiful Minke sightings.

-Aldís Erna Pálsdóttir

Tour at 10:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We began our trip with a visit to Akurey to visit the charismatic puffins. There were lots of them on and around the island and we got a good look at these cute little birds. We then sailed out in to Faxaflói to begin our search for the cetaceans. Pretty soon we got to see the first cetacean of the tour a Minke whale! We got a few looks at it but it quickly swam off in search of something else to do. After a while of seeing the minkes come up once and then swimming away we sailed into an area where our fish finder showed a lot of fish in the area. There we found a very nice minke whale which came up quite close and we got a very good look at the head and blowhole as it surfaced. We were also surrounded by very many gannets and could see them diving for fish all around us. A fantastic combination of whales and gannets! We then sailed back to Reykjavik after a good trip.

-Ívar Elí Sveinsson

Tour at 9:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We sailed out to Akurey the Puffin Island, in a calm see and fortunately there were so many Puffins around that everyone got a very good look at the little "Penguins of the Sea" as they are also called. After 30 minutes sail we saw our first Minke Whale and also around 5 Harbour Porpoises in between. We had around 7 Minke Whales surfacing around the boat some closer some further away. We got a good look at the ones close to the boat, as they were just about 30 meters away.

-Lisa Hofmann

Birds seen on todays tour: Fulmar, Lesser Black-Blacked Gull, Northern Gannet, Razorbill, Guillemot, Shag, Puffin, Arctic tern, Kittiwake, Greater Black-Backed Gull, Great Skua.