Saturday, 8 November 2014

Tour at 13:00

Report from Elding: Today we started our tour in Grindavík because of the adverse sea conditions in Faxaflói Bay.  The sea was quite calm for most part of the tour so we could see animals from great distance. We sailed east and it wasn’t until we had turned around that we saw the first sign of cetaceans. Group of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins showed up, they were little elusive but we could follow them for a while. We sailed further and saw then another group of 4 dolphins, they were very calm and we sometimes got them close to the boat. While we were watching the dolphins we noticed a much bigger animal on the other side of the boat, a humpback whale!!  It was in about 350 meters distance, but we stayed in the area for some time. It was most likely feeding because we could see a lot of fish under the boat with our fish finder. The whale spent some time between surfacing but every time it came up it came three or four times in a row so everyone got a really good look at it. Once the whale came in about 10-15 meters distance to the boat that was just amazing!!

- Sigurlaug

Birds seen on today's tour include: Northern gannets, kittiwakes, black-backed gulls, glaucous gulls and fulmars.