Sunday, 1 May 2016

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: The weather and sea conditions remained optimum for our last tour of the day. Quite soon after leaving the harbour we came across a young harbour seal. The seal was both curious and inquisitive and stared at us for a long time while swimming around the boat. After a short way further out in the bay the harbour porpoises and minke whales showed themselves almost at the same time. Altogether, the porpoises we saw during this tour numbered between 40 to 50 animals. We saw between 5 and 6 minke whales with two of them being quite bold and coming quite close to the boat.Northern gannets were diving head first in the water as we made our way back to the harbour.

- Rémi Bigonneau

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: We left Reykjavík under the rain but the weather and sea conditions had remain perfect out in the bay. Once again we could enjoy a nice sunny and windless weather over a quiet sea. Once again the harbour porpoises were easy to see and behaving quietly allowing outstanding observations. We saw between 50 and 60 of them during the whole tour. Minke whales started to show up soon after and we could easily see then surfacing around us. One of them turned out to be Spider, an individual we identified first in 2010 and saw every summer since then. This was the first observation for this individual this season. We saw between 4 to 5 minke whales before finding our first humpback whale. The second one was surrounded by about 20 white-beaked dolphins, including a mother and her calf. The whale showed us its fluke as it dived just before we head back to the harbour.

- Rémi Bigonneau

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: Both the weather and sea conditions were optimal as we left the harbour. The absence of wind and swell allowed us to have a clear visibility over a considerable distance. The observation of numerous pods of harbour porpoises was especially good as they were often surfacing around the boat during the whole tour. We saw between 50 and 60 porpoises all together. We also quickly started to spot minke whales quietly surfacing all around the area, with about 4 to 5 animals seen. The tour was already doing great when we started following a subadult male orca wandering alone in the bay. Deeply satisfied by our encounters we crossed a harbour seal surfacing next to the boat as we were heading back to the harbour. A pair of white-beaked dolphins added themselves to the already impressive list when they showed up on our path a bit later.

- Rémi Bigonneau

Bird species seen on todays tours include: common eider, black guillemot, Atlantic puffin, razorbill, northern fulmar, kittiwake, greater black-backed gull, northern gannet, common guillemot, greylag goose, european shag, lesser black-backed gull and Arctic skua.