Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had picked up quite a bit on the evening tour. We went out to search for the humpback, but the first cetacean of the tour was a pod of 8-10 white-beaked dolphins feeding in a really lively area. We had thousands of birds around us (mainly arctic terns and kittiwakes) so we expected to find some minkes in the area. Strangely the whales proved to be elusive and the only minke whale we saw was only seen by the guide and a few passengers once. We had almost given up to find the humpback but we got a call from another whale watching boat that they had relocated the whale. It was the same humpback whale as in the morning tour. It gave us an incredible show by lunge-feeding 4 times infront of us! Followed by surfacing closely and fluking on almost every dive. A very nice ending, that really saved the tour!
- Marcus Bergström
Tour at 14:00
Report from Eldey: Like our morning tour, this tour also started with a few minke whales not that far away from the harbour. First, we spotted only one but soon noticed that there were at least three minke whales around us. We watched them surfacing around us for a while before we left them to search for a humpback whale. First, we encountered a humpback whale that was slowly traveling next to us without goring for deep dives Inbetween the surfacings. Since we don't want to disturb the animals to much, we decided to also look for the second humpback whale which was the same that we had encountered on the morning tour that is entangled in a fishing net. We stayed a while with this one and got to see a few fluke-pups before we started heading back to the harbour. When we were already quite close to land, we spotted a group of about 6 white-beaked dolphins that was traveling at high speed. We tried to get a closer look but it was difficult to follow them. Only one individual came close to us and checked us out before returning to its group. A nice ending for this sunny tour!
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The weather and sea was still great from the morning so we were in high spirits this afternoon. This tour started like the last as we first found a pair of minke whales but they were not as active as the last ones so we soon headed further out. Over the tour we would see around another 10 minke whales in the bay, full of life today! We wanted to find the great humpback from the last tour so we were sailing very far out and first found a pod of 8 white-beaked dolphins which were travelling very slowly through the area giving us great looks at their black and white bodies in the sunlight. It took some searching but eventually we found our beloved humpback whale, an individual named Charlie. Charlie was swimming very close to the vessel, so close that the breath of the whale could be felt by the passengers on board! This was another brilliant tour on a day where the bay of full of life!
- Jack Ball
Tour at 10:00
Report from Eldey: This tour from Reykjavík started in perfect sea conditions under a slightly cloudy sky. In these great conditions it didn't take long to find our first minke whale. It surfaced in front of us and as we got closer we could watch it surfacing four times in a row on our side. We stayed a little while with this individual and then decided to head towards an area where a humpback whale had been spotted earlier. On our way we spotted more minke whales and also a group of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins. We didn't slow down to get closer to the minkes; however, we slowly approached the dolphins and could see them swimming underneath our boat and around as for a few minutes. Then, we moved on to the humpback whale, after shortly encountering 2-3 shy harbour porpoises that quickly disappeared when we got closer. The humpback whale was in a better mood; when we approached it, it rolled over on its side and slapped with its huge pectoral fin on the water surface multiple times. We stayed with it a little while as it didn't seem to be disturbed by our presence and then headed back to the harbour.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: This morning we were greeted with perfect sailing conditions and even sunshine on our journey. This was just the start as we would have an incredible tour over the next three hours. This was a four species tour with all four giving us a great show! The first was the minke whales which was a pair of minke whales circling the boat and swimming beside us. In total during the tour we saw 15-20 minke whales in the area! Next up were the white-beaked dolphins which were playing with the boat and giving us another great show, the pod was around 6 individuals large. Then came the highlight of the tour, a humpback whale! We were lucky enough to have found the whale in a curious mood as it was swimming around the front of the boat and looking at us from under the surface, due to the clear ocean we could see the entire whale as it was checking us out. A truly special encounter. It didn't end here though as we then found a pod of 8 harbour porpoises which were doing the very rare thing of actually interacting with the vessel! This is highly unusual for this species and was a perfect way to end a fantastic tour.
- Jack Ball
Birds seen on todays tour include: kittiwakes, puffins, arctic terns, northern fulmars, northern gannets, common guillemots, razorbills, black-backed gulls, black-headed gull, cormorants, eider ducks, arctic skuas, great skua and manx shearwaters.
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