Sunday, 08 June 2014

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The conditions were still the same as we left the harbour for our evening tour. Although the conditions were still good for sightings we could not discover a lot of life in the beginning. But then we found two Minke Whales at the same time! They were swimming right next to each other synchronously. All in all we watched 8 different minke whales on this tour, one of which we identified as "File". The last individual we saw right before we got back into the harbour, so we were "forced" to prolong our tour for a little bit! =) The different minke whales were travelling with different speeds and some of them surfaced right in front or next to us. We also managed to find a pod of 5-7 Harbour Porpoises in between all the minke-action. Luckily they did not behave in their typically shy porpoise-manner but let us approach very closely and swam right in front of our boat. A great ending to a whole day with lots and lots of minke whales!

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: While in the 10:00 trip we had calm seas it was quite cloudy, on this afternoon trip the sun decided to come out. If you add that to the flat sea then it was perfect sunbathing weather. Even better for whale watching though! We actually had a fantastic start to the tour too, after just 15 minutes sailing we spotted a Minke Whale! Right beside the island Engey this minke was slowly travelling, after a short time with this whale we decided to move further out, with this start we were confident of greater things to come. Before the real highlight of the tour we spotted another minke that was moving through the area. But then we found something amazing. It was 3 more minke whales, but they were all feeding together! Along with a huge flock of Arctic Terns that were diving into the water the minkes were lunging under the surface, you could see their upper body creating a big splash as they surfaced rapidly. As they were feeding they stayed in one small area for the whole time, this meant we could turn off our engine and let the breathing of the whales be our music of choice. After a very long and entertaining encounter we had to head back to Reykjavík, with the sun at our backs we could bathe in the sun content after such a great afternoon.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had picked up a little bit since the morning, but the light clouds and lack of swell still made for excellent sighting conditions. Fairly close to the harbour we found our first Minke Whale. We stayed with it for a while and got nice looks as it surfaced fairly close to us. Then we headed further out into the bay and kept finding more and more minkes (at least 4-6 in total). Some of them were casually travelling along while others were a bit more curious - at one point we had two individuals surfacing right next to us on both sides of the boat! When we weren't watching whales we were well entertained by the seabirds flying around or sitting on the water surface: among others, mixed groups of Atlantic Puffins and Common Guillemots and Arctic Terns racing around in search of food. We enjoyed the calm ride back in the bright sunshine with some music to round off this afternoon tour.

- Linda

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: The weather this weekend has been fantastic and this Sunday morning was no different, the sea was mirror like and it was another day where our overalls were worn by few people on board. We had heard reports from other boats out at the time that there were already whales seen in an area around an hour away from the city. But our plans would change quite a lot. As we were heading to that area, about 40 minutes out of the city we found some Minke Whales. In this area we managed to see 5 whales. 5 whales in one small area! There were two pairs of minkes plus one that was travelling on its own. Our total time watching the whales was much longer than usual as they were so visible and we didn´t have to move at all to see them all. They were all so calm and happy with the boat that we didn´t have to do much at all. They were constantly surfacing all around us, no matter where you looked you would find a whale! It never gets much better, perfect weather and an awesome sighing of 5 whales.

- Jack Ball

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Without wind and swell we headed out into perfect conditions and later on the sun was even shining through the thin cloud layer. In total we had 12 Minke Whale sightings throughout the trip. Because we had such a good visibility we saw several times various minkes in different directions and different distances. Some came really close and gave us good possibilities to observe them. Even when our time was up and we had to sail back, we stopped several times to watch another minke. We recognised two individuals called "Flickr" and "Teddy". So we went from one Minke to the next and in between we had even some glimpses at 2 small pods of Harbour Porpoises. The last was in between the two puffin colonies close by the harbour entrance.

- Carine Zimmermann

Birds seen on todays tours include: Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Puffins, Black-backed gulls, Arctic skuas, Arctic terns, Razorbills, Common guillemots, Black Guillemots, Manx shearwaters, Northern gannets.