Saturday, 24 July 2010

Tour at 20:30

We sailed out in beautiful weather so it was a promising tour considering a beautiful sunset later on. After a little search for the whales, we spotted a group of white beaked dolphins. They came up slowly all around but swam away after a while. We went further out and thanks to our binocular, we spotted another group of breaching dolphins in the distance. There were probably 15 of them playing all around the boat, bow-riding in the waves and breaching. Sometimes they were only one meter away from us, following the boat so we could have a good look at the whole animal underneath the water surface. The passengers and crew got all exited, running around the boat and trying to catch them under the water. On the way back home we found one Minke whale but he only came up 4 times. This tour was truly amazing with active animals in breathtaking surroundings and colorful sunset.

 

Tour at 17:00

Headed straight out into Faxafloi Bay for about 50 minutes to an hour before we spotted a pod of White-beaked Dolphins (at least 15 individuals). They were very playful and constantly played under the boat and leaping out of the water. We then saw a Minke Whale in the distance to we went to get closer but it went for a deep dive and we couldn´t find it again. We played around with the dolphins for a bit longer and then when the other whale watching vessels joined us we went looking for some more Minke Whales. We found one more which surfaced about 6 times before once again disappearing. We slowly headed back to the coast and visited Akurey where we saw a few Puffins not many but a lot  of Arctic Skuas. Again great tour. Really nice to see the  Dolphins so interactive.

 

Tour at 14:00

The weather was beautiful, sunny and no wind. We started the tour by sailing to the whale watching area. On the way out, we found all kinds of birds like diving gannets, skuas chasing other small birds, fullmars flying extremely close to the boat and clumsy puffins trying to take off. We spotted few Minke whales throughout the trip. Some of them came close to the boat and some came up far away. Another great tour.

 

Tour at 13:00

In wonderful weather we sailed out to Faxaflói bay, searching for whales. It took us some time to find them this time. Then the first Minke whale showed up few hundred meters in front of our boat. The whale came quite close to us and surfaced few times. Suddenly we saw white color close to the surface and it was the belly of the Minke whale, amazing, and it was like that for 30-40 seconds. Belly up. It was feeding close to the surface.  Fantastic. But then it disappeared. We sailed further out and spotted two Minke whales. One of them came very close but only once, before disappearing. The Minke whales did that many times on this tour. There were a lot of birds in the bay today, lots of  diving Gannets witch are always quite spectacular to watch, also Fulmars, Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Gulls, and Puffins, actually there were more Puffins out in the bay than around the Puffin island Akurey.

 

Tour at 10:00

Faxaflói bay is one of the best places in the world to see the Minke Whales because it´s a very shallow bay and close to land. And this we proved today. We spotted probably 10 Minke Whales on this tour. Many of them came very close to the boat. We could clearly see them underwater and sometimes they were rolling so we could see the white belly. The passengers left the boat with a big smile :D

 

Tour at 09:00

We started the tour by visiting Akurey (Puffin Island) and once again there weren´t many Puffins to be seen but there were quite a few out in Faxaflói Bay. It took us about 40-50 minutes to get out to where the whales were. At first they were quite elusive and we were nearly about to leave them but then suddenly one started to surface feed less than 100 meters from us then suddenly there were two Minke Whales. We watched these two Minkes for a while and then about an hour later we found that we were surrounded by Minke Whales, must of been at least 10 in the area. Sometimes we could see them just under the waters surface and rolling, extending their ventral pleats for food. Fantastic tour.