Saturday, 3 September 2016

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. It´s a cold but sunny morning. Hopefully you can join us today to see these amazing giants ! 

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: We set out into the most incredible conditions this afternoon, completely still glassy waters and an incredibly dramatic sky with interspersed cloud and sunlight. The conditions meant our eagle-eyed passengers could spot our first minke whale after a half hour when it was still 1 km away! We approached this individual very slowly which meant that it surfaced repeatedly close and slow to the boat; what a wonderfully co-operative whale. After seeing countless surfaces we left this majestic animal in peace and headed further out where we must´ve seen at least 3 more minkes in the distance, but what really caught our eye was the big splashes in direction of Mt. Keilir. As we headed towards it we came across a pod of at least 10 dispersed white-beaked dolphin. They calmed down after 10 minutes of splashing and leaping so we thought about heading towards some more minkes, but these dolphins began to follow us and interact with the boat! We saw a range of incredible behaviours including head- and tail-slapping, bubble blowing, upside-down jumping and even bow-riding with complete ease. As to the purpose of these displays - who knows! This was a truly magical encounter, the dolphins were putting on such a show for the delighted passengers. We begun to head home towards Reykjavik and were surprised to discover another pod of dolphins as well as at least 4 more minkes and even a glimpse of ~3 harbour porpoises. A fantastic end to a fantastic tour, even if it did rain a little!

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey and Elding: Due to the high number of passengers we went out with two boats on this tour! Elding headed out first with Eldey a bit behind. Another boat spotted a group of about 20 white-beaked dolphins and Eldey headed over there and also saw this group with many juveniles and calves traveling at a high speed  and leaping out of the water. Elding further out also saw the same species of dolphins, and they were also being very active. Afterwards both boats encountered several minke whales in the Bay, some of them lunge-feeding at the surface. There were probably at least 6 minke whales in the area around us so that the boats could spread out and look at different individuals. Eldey also saw a group of 3-4 harbour porpoises passing by quickly, as well as 2 minke whales on the way back that may have even been traveling together. 

- Hanna Michel & Alberto Alejandro Martínez Rodríguez

Tour at 09:00:

Report from Eldey: The tour started with perfect sea conditions under an overcast sky. While sailing out of the harbour a passenger spotted a small pod of around six well named harbour porpoises. The water surface was so still that it was unusually easy to look at these tiny animals while they were quietly surfacing. Our next cetacean was also spotted by a passenger, a minke whale appeared in the distance. We followed it for a short time but the animal was spending quite a long time under water and decided to leave and try our luck further out. But the whale had other plans! It quickly surfaced right next to our boat and started turning around us. It rolled around itself while coming back and forth under the boat and even did very nice spy hops, the whale was doing some human watching! The small individual entertained us for a while but eventually lost its interest in us and we went away looking for more animals. We soon encountered a pod of about eight white-beaked dolphins. These animals are usually the ones interacting with us but today roles were inverted. The dolphins ignored us but let us follow them slowly. They actually brought us all the way back to our previous minke whale! We then ran out of time and had to leave our friendly whale, and saw three more passing by on the way back.

- Rémi Bigonneau

Bird species seen on today´s tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, common guillemot, Atlantic puffin, lesser black-backed gull, and manx shearwater.