Monday, 26 October 2015

Tour at 13:00

Report from Elding and Eldey: because of high number of passengers we went out on two boats this afternoon. The wind was picking up but the sea conditions were still good. Eldey went further out on the bay to search for animals than Elding. Elding was the first boat to find cetaceans, a minke whale that was feeding under a big flock of birds. Everyone on Elding got a really good look at this minke whale. In this lively area we saw at least 3 minke whales. When Eldey arrived the minke whales were starting to be more elusive. It took Eldey a bit longer time to find a good minke but in the end they saw one feeding that came up more often. On the way back Elding saw 5-6 white beaked dolphins and followed them for few minutes.

-Sigurlaug and Marcus

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: Incredible visibility this morning and sunshine. Calm winds and an almost flat sea, meant perfect conditions. We could see all the way to Snæfellsjökull volcano impressive 95 km away. The tour had just started when we came across a pod of 6 white-beaked dolphins. It were three mothers with calves, a chock of cuteness right from the start. The calves surfaced close to their mothers, not leaving their side. We stayed with the for a short while and then we left them in peace. A great start to the tour. We sailed further out, after a while I spotted a blow on our port side. when we got closer it proved to be a minke whale. The good conditions made it possible for us to observe the blow of the minke. While we were waiting for the whale to surface a third time a pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises traveled by us. We spent a long time with the minke whale and we got excellent views when it came really close to us on two occasions. We sailed back with the stunning scenery around us, a very nice late autumn day out at sea!

- Marcus Bergström  

Birds seen on todays tours include. northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, glaucous gulls, Iceland gulls, greater black-backed gulls, black-headed gulls, common gulls, great northern diver, eider duck, common guillemot, razorbill and cormorant