Saturday, 01 August 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had slowed down from this morning and the wind direction had changed so we sailed out in absolutely perfect conditions for whale watching. It didn't take us long to find a minke whale, actually 3 minke whales all within 500 meters from the boat. One of them came really close to the boat so the passengers could have a really good look at it. After a while of spotting we found a beautiful pod of white-beaked dolphins. This pod was really nice to us, came close up the boat circling around the boat. A minke whale popped up really close to the boat, only about 200 meters but it went it's own way so respected that and kept on going. We were really happy to have the pleasure to see these animals and on our way back we really didn't have any more expectations. But to our surprise we saw a big blow in the distance. This was the humpback whale, Charlie. Charlie was really calm but we got to witness him feed by lunging out of the water. Really a beautiful whale and just a perfect ending of a good tour.

- Katrín Björnsdóttir

Tour at 14:00

Report from Eldey: On this tour, the sea conditions were even better than in the morning because the swell was not as high anymore. We decided to head offshore again towards the humpback whale. When we found it we realized that this was a different individual than the humpback whale encountered on the 10:00 tour. It seemed to be resting at the water surface as it barely moved forward and never showed us its fluke which would be in indication for a deeper dive. However, it was surfacing regularly and didn't seem disturbed by our presence so everyone could get an excellent look at this gentle giant. After a while we decided to move on and soon came across white-beaked dolphins. We could see a group of 5-8 animals in some distance, but two dolphins also came towards us, swam underneath our boat, surfaced on the other side and then one of them started jumping out of the water about 10 times right next to us. Then, they moved away from us, and we started searching for the second humpback whale. We found it a few minutes later and got some nice pictures of fluke-ups with the sun shining from a blue sky. Similar to the morning tour, we also spotted 2 minke whales on the way back to the harbour and managed to see one of them surfacing a few times in front of us. 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The weather improved a little from the morning and though it was still a little cold we had very smooth sailing throughout this trip. It didn´t take too long before we saw our first signs of life in the bay, we saw the blow of a big whale very far away alerting its whereabouts to us. As we sailed in that direction we saw two minke whales surfacing near to each other, they were not spending long at the surface and we saw something larger further out so we sailed in that direction. We were very glad we did because there were two humpback whales in the area. We had to choose one to watch and this proved to be an excellent choice as it was acrobatically feeding with its mouth wide open and high in the air at the surface of the water. It did this many times and was perfect for photographing! This was a whale we know well as being 'Charlie'. We then went to find the second whale and got a nice look at more humpback whale activity before being fully satisfied of some spectacular whale activity.

- Jack Ball

-Tour at  10:00

Report from Eldey: The sea conditions were a lot better today compared to yesterday since the wind had calmed down and the waves were gone. And so it didn't take a long time to spot the first cetaceans: a group of 8 adult white-beaked dolphins plus 3 calves. Two of the calves were always surfacing close to an adult individual, probably their mothers, while the third one seemed slightly larger and was a little more adventurous and surfacing on its own. After this amazing encounter we headed further offshore to look for a humpback whale that had been seen there before. On our way, we also came across two minke whales but didn't slow down because we wanted to get to the humpback whale. It was the same individual seen on a tour yesterday that was entangled in a fishing net. It seemed rather calm today and was slowly traveling next to us. On our way we finally also got a good look at a minke whale that we spotted closer to the harbour.

Tour at 9:00

Report from Hafsúlan and Elding: This tour started off great, it was only about 30 minutes of sailing until we spotted our first species. We first encountered one individual of white-beaked dolphin which was travelling pretty quickly. Then we noticed that it was travelling to another pod, maybe 8 individuals. We saw the white beak and the white stripes on their bodies which are just beautiful. We kept on going and spotted our second species of the day, the minke whale. We spotted two minke whales on our tour and one of the just popped up only about 20 meters from the boat. Really nice sightings there. By the end of the tour we were lucky enough to encounter our third species of the day, the humpback whale. Unfortunately this individual was tangled up in a fishing net. We really hope that someone can untangle this individual. We sailed home back to Reykjavík with the sun in our faces and happy to have been able to see three species in Faxaflói.

- Katrín Björnsdóttir and Jack Ball

Bird species seen on today´s tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, arctic terns, kittiwakes, lesser black-backed gulls, atlantic puffins, common guillemots, and arctic skuas.