Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: The weather didn't change much from the afternoon. This time we tried to sail more north in hope to find more cetaceans there. It felt cold when we sailed up into the wind that was blowing hard from north. After we passed the town Akranes we soon turned around and sailed with the wind, that felt so much warmer having the wind in our backs. Soon after we turned we spotted 4-5 harbour porpoises that surfaced close to our boat, this was not a long encounter but still most of our passengers were able to see these cute and small cetaceans. Now we kept going south we saw that there was more bird life around and while watching the birds fly around our boat we spotted our second species, 7-8 white-beaked dolphins! It was easier to follow the dolphins around and we got some amazing looks of the dolphins surfacing around our boat, they swam close to the surface so we were able to follow them underwater. Suddenly the dolphins disappeared, we started heading towards Reykjavík, on our way we saw northern gannets diving and we wanted to check out if any cetaceans had also come to that area to feed. We were right! As soon as we got closer to the gannets a minke whale surfaced in front of us! Unfortunately we only saw it twice before we went to harbour, but all of our passengers that stood on the front of the boat got a good look at it as it surfaced only 100 meters away.
-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey and Hafsúlan: we again sailed out on two boast duo to high number of passengers. The wind had picked up from the morning and the swell as well. The boats split up to search for animals over a larger area. We scanned the areas where the minkes had been seen on the morning tour with little luck. Both boats saw a lot of harbour porpoises and they were definitely the stars of the tours. Over all we must have seen at least 30-40 porpoises in 5-6 pods. One pod of 2 porpoises seemed to be checking Eldey out, the were first spotted 150 meters away, they then turned around and came towards us. We stopped the boat to see what they were up to and guess what! They came right next to us, stayed always close to the surface so we could follow every movement of these small animals. they swam back and forth in front of the boat and surfaced slowly so everyone got a good look at them. Hafsúlan also got a brief look at a minke whale in the end of the tour. Even though we had an amazing time with the porpoises on this tour we offered all of our passengers tickets to come again so they could have another chance of finding larger animals, either dolphins or whales.
-Sigurlaug and Megan
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey and Hafsúlan: We set sail under a bright sun, so this tour started very nicely. We had a smooth trip until we were caught up by a North-Eastern wind that got us a little bit more chilly. Fortunately for us, the swell remained minimum and we had a merciful sailing. The white caps at the surface of the water made the spotting slightly tricky but it was not long before we sighted a minke whale. It was surfacing quickly so we had a little bit of troubles to follow it properly but we managed to get nice glances before other whale watching boats came to see this whale. As this area was getting a little bit crowded we sailed further offshore, hoping to find more species. We did not find any new species so after a while we decided to go back to see the minke whale again, and we were right as we could have incredible sights of this whale very close to the boats and also witness its powerful blow. When it was due time, we headed back toward Reykjavik, under the cold wind but still under the sun.
- Guillaume Calcagni
Bird species seen on todays tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, manx shearwater, glaucous gull, Iceland gull, greater black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, kittiwake, black-headed gull, puffin, common guillemot, razorbill, arctic terns, arctic skua and eider duck.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik on a beautiful day. There is little to no wind at the Harbour but it can pick up wind on Faxabay.