Saturday, 8 July 2017

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: Still choppy seas were waiting for us in the bay. For almost one hour we sailed across the northern shore, getting as much shelter as we could. Then we adventured ourselves inside the bay and we spotted a few blows in the distance, but unfortunately when we arrived there was nothing to be seen. We got a report from another boat that they had found a humpback whale and that it was doing funny things! So we headed there. Soon, we started to gaze in the distance the amazing show: huge splashes that could only have been caused by a breaching whale! We encountered a pod of white beaked dolphins on our way, but since the whale was still quite far from us we couldn't really enjoy the show. Nonetheless we arrived just in time to see the animal making some pectoral slappings (extraordinary violents, I must say!), tail slappings, peduncle throwings, head slappings and... at the end... the breaching! The humpback whale breached a few times around 100-200 m away from our boat! And a few hundreds of meters away there were some blows belonging to a second individual that was present in the area. What a thrilling experience we got during this midnight tour! After spending one hour with the animal we headed back to the harbour quite happy, enjoying the best troubadour Iceland has ever produced singing for us.

- Alberto Alejandro

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: The sea was still choppy as we headed offshore and the swell higher. However, due to the business of the tour with plentiful wildlife passengers paid no mind to the sea conditions. More and more of the blue sky showed itself throughout and the light by the end of the tour was incredible. It was a short trip to see our first cetacean, a minke whale. Surfaced once and then it was gone. Another smaller individual surfaced and most if not all passengers could see and watch as it surfaced just 5 meters from our boat and a few more times before that one too vanished.  We continued and got word of a humpback whale, a diddy one at that. The humpback was small and a bit difficult and elusive at first but soon warmed up to us. As the sun turned the sea a turqoise colour we could see the whale travelling just under the surface and eventually surfacing just 20-30 meters from our vessel. We left and found another humpback whale and a very playful pod of harbour porpoises. At least 10-15 scattered in the area. A great end to the day.

- Megan Whittaker

Tour 14:00

Report from Hafsulan: The wind had picked up a lot during the day which made our afternoon tour a lot colder and also bumpier due to the rougher sea conditions. We sailed out into the bay and come across 2 large flocks of birds fairly close to each other and also saw 3-4 minke whales in the same area that were feeding on the same fish as the birds! We spent some time in that area watching all the animals until a few other boats arrived to get a look at the minkes. Therefore, we moved on to an area where a humpback whale had been spotted and soon also saw it just 100 m away from us! It was a humpback whale that we have seen on some tours this year and last year as well, it was Daisy! Daisy, whether a male or a female, surfaced pretty close to us a few times, just about 20 m away, and gave us a few nice fluke-ups to take pictures of.After spending a while with Daisy the humpback whale, we moved on to some other areas and got to see 2-3 more minke whales before we returned to the harbour! 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: Similar to the morning tours this afternoon trip was full of wildlife. First animal which went across our path was a single harbour porpoise. This small cetacean jump few times and disappeared very fast. Not long later we encountered pod of 5 white-beaked dolphins. With them we could spend few good moments when animals were swimming freely around us. Further in the bay we found humpback whale Daisy!This individual is a star of our tours since yesterday. Once again this whale seemed to be curious about us and get very close, coming back from a dive right next to our boat. It was great experience! Later on, under flock of feeding northern gannets - what is very spectacular - we could see few minke whales. This animals were elusive today, but after awesome encounters with other cetaceans we cannot complain!

- Ewa Malinowska

Tour at 10:00

Report from Hafsulan: The tour didn't start very well today: it was raining and temperature wasn't as warm as previous days, but sea state was glorious! As soon as we left the harbour everything improved, water color was awesome to spot animals and visibility couldn't be better. After a while searching, we saw a big flock of birds: a perfect indicator of food availability so we sailed in that direction. For our surprise, we found a humpback whale just resting in the area, a behaviour well known by milling, after all our beloved animals need to take a break from time to time. We left the humpie alone and we continued with our "hunt". It didn't take too long when we spotted a lot of minke whales popping around in every direction, meaning a high productivity this morning in Faxafloi. But these whales weren't the only species yet to discover this morning, from nowhere some white-beaked dolphins surfaced but not in a normal way. We were able to see some juveniles and little calves jumping out of the water! When we tried to come back to Reykjavik they followed us diving under our boat, it was amazing! During half of the tour we had technical problems with the microphone but passengers, crew members and cetaceans gave their best to ensure an extraordinary whale-watching tour.

-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: The tour this morning was amazing for wildlife, cetaceans and birdlife everywhere. The weather was a little miserable, wet and cold but it cleared up for the second half and became quite beautiful. Our first cetacean was a humpback whale, found just 20 minutes, a few kilometers NW from the lighthouse Grotta. It was difficult to follow, diving for a long time. We left it and headed offshore. Found another humpback whale and 2-3 minke whales. The minkes seemed to be busy feeding where as the humpback looked to be taking it easy. Enjoying the weekend. Later in the tour we found 'Daisy' the humpback whale (whale cataloged last year) and another 2-3 minke whales and a playful pod of photogenic harbour porpoises, at least 8-10 individuals.

- Megan Whittaker

Birds encountered on todays tour includes: Common guillemots, Black guillemot, Atlantic puffin, Northern fulmar, Black-legged kittwakes, arctic terns, arctic skuas, Great skua, Northern gannets, manx shearwaters, lesser and greater black-backed gulls, european storm petrel and eider ducks.