Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding : The weather was awesome so we were optimistic about the tour. We only saw 2 Puffin on Akurey tonight (they were probably feeding at sea) but lots of other birds : Black-backed seagulls, fulmars, kittywakes, greylag goose, eyder ducks. We headed offshore in Faxafloì Bay and we didn't take too long before we spotted 2 big White-beaked Dophins. We tried to get closer but they dove down after 2 minutes and we couldn't find them again so we kept going out to search for other species. We did spot an Harbour Porpoise, I actually saw it 2 times but couldn't show it to the passengers. A shy porpoise as it happens sometimes. The rest of the tour was pretty difficult, the bay was really calm so at the end of the tour we decided to give another chance to the passengers. We sailed back listenning some live music.
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: this was a difficult tour due to that apart from seeing a few (2-4) White-beaked Dolphins shortly on two occasions, once in the beginning of the tour and once towards the end, there was nothing else, neither Harbour Porpoises nor Minke Whales. Indeed this would have become a complimentary tour (whereby we adhere to our policy of giving complimentary tickets to everyone onboard in case of no or very bad sightings) if not for that we had some nice views of the dolphins on the second occasion we saw the species. We heard their blows and were able to watch them for a little while before they disappeared. There were some birds on the water but not overly many, which suggests that there was not much food in the bay when we were out there. However, the passengers we spoke to towards the end were very pleased with the tour, the weather, the boat, the service and more. It always pleases us to know that it is not just about whales, although they are very important of course.
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: We headed out the mirror calm Faxaflói bay in beautiful weather. We did not have to search for a long time when we came across a small pod of Harbour Porpoises, the sea was so calm that most of our passengers got a good look at it. Then we sailed on to see what else the bay had to offer us today. After a little sailing we spotted a pod of White Beaked Dolphins, they were super nice to look at, coming very close and we could even see them under the surface swimming under the boat! After spending some time with the Dolphins we went on hoping we could also find some Minke Whales on this already awesome tour. We were in luck, after only a little search we spotted one Minke Whale and after following it for a while we spotted two other Minkes in the same area! But of course like always we had to head back to Reykjavik after this amazing tour with so many whales. On our way back we stopped at Akurey the puffin colony but there were not many puffins around this time. All in all it was a great tour in a great weather!
Tour at 1300:
Report from Hafsúlan We sailed straight into the calm and beautyful bay and started with the searching. At first we spotted a Pod of 2+ Harbor Porpoises but as usual they were shy and illusive. So we did not wait long for them and headed on into the bay. We found a Minke Whale that we watched for a long time. It seemed to be busy and went down for long time before it surfaced again. But when it came to the surface we all got a good view on it. After a while there were three other boats coming into the same area, so we decided to leave and to search somewhere else. This was a good decicion as we found a Pod of 5 to 8 White Beaked Dolphins which were great to watch. They changed direction a lot but in between they came close to our boat. On the way home we stopped at Akurey to watch Puffins. There were not many Puffins on the island but we had a great tour with three differnt species before.
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: Really great tour with Harbour Porpoises and 5 Minke Whales with one of them we saw longer which was the highlight of the tour having great feeding behaviour as well as hunting behaviours, circling prey and producing bubles before lunge feeding. We saw it on the side rolling at the surface with its white belly up and the fluke out of the water on the side, the mouth extended full of prey. This whale taught us litterally how a minke whale hunt prey, by circling a lot in order to gather the fish or prey tighter. Was really great ! Almost no puffins on this tour though.
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: this was a lovely tour with a number of Minke Whale sightings but none of them was particulary near to the boat so it was the only thing missing. However, just to see those gorgeous Minkes is enough, the distance between us doesn't really matter, let alone if you have never seen a whale before, as we suspect many of our passengers have, which makes our job even more pleasant! We spent most of the tour off the Sudurnes Peninsula in front of Mount Keilir where several (3-4) of those Minkes came up at different times and a single Harbour Porpoise too but very few passengers saw it. The sea was even and just exceptionally good conditions.