Saturday, 20 September 2014

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: As we left for our tour this afternoon we found perfect sighting conditions in the bay. There was a bit of sun and almost no wind, with the ocean surface almost as calm as a mirror. Shortly after leaving the harbour we turned around after hearing about a minke whale sighting from our sea angling tour. On the way towards the islands of Kollafjörður in front of Reykjavík we spotted another minke whale. However, we only saw it surface twice and moved on to see the other individual. This animal was moving around the area very slowly, surfacing only few times after rather long dives. After watching it for a while we decided to head back out and found another individual to watch. This one, same as the third one we found a bit later on, was also slowly moving around. It gave us some nice looks at its body as it surprised us by surfacing close to our boat. All in all, a successful afternoon with little time traveling and lots of time spent with the whales.

- Linda

Tour at 09:00Report from Hafsúlan: the conditions certainly looked perfect from the harbour and indeed we have seen worse but even so, we could have been without the swell. However, there were no white tops and you could see far and wide, just what we need for whale-spotting. We did see some 2 minke whales first on the tour, some distance apart from each other but we lost both after seeing them two or three times. Then we got a call from another whale-watching boat to inform us that they had at least two and possibly three minkes feeding in an area a bit to the north from us; indeed we could even see their whales from where we were. Upon our arrival there, we found 3-4 minke whales feeding and, rather interestingly, two seemingly together! Whenever we saw one surface, the other followed suit and sometimes they would at the same time. Very interesting and I honestly cannot remember when was the last time that I saw minke whales so clearly in companionship. In between were small groups of harbour porpoises (1-5 each) so a very pleasant tour.- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Birds seen on today's tour include: northern gannet,northern fulmar, common guillemot, greater black-backed gull, glaucous gull, kittiwake, black-headed gull, eider duck.