Tour at 1700
Report from Hafsúlan: The last tour of the day was not that productive than the two others we did before. The weather was still great just the wind picked up a little bit and the surface of the ocean was not that calm anymore. We were sailing very far out and searching for a long time but unfortunately the only thing we saw were two blows in a distance and three Harbor Porpoises that surfaced very shortly. On the way back we stopped at the Puffin colony and even the Puffins were lesser than the days before. At the end everyone on board got a complimentary ticket to try to find the whales again after a long tour with a long search.
Tour at 1400
Report from Elding: this tour was as dissatisfying as the 10 o'clock tour had been satisfying. Akurey was full of Puffins as it had been in the morning but that was about the only positive thing about the tour apart from wonderful sunny weather on the trip back to harbour. The cetaceans (collective name for whales, dolphins and porpoises) were remarkably elusive. We only saw three Minke Whales and lost all into the deep water after seeing each just once. It was just as disappointing for us in the crew as it must have been for our passengers as our passion is to show people wildlife, but we cannot control wildlife and our passengers are normally understanding of that. However, as we would like to have everyone leaving happy, we have the policy to offer complimentary tickets to all passengers on tours such as this one that are valid for the next two years, and that is of course what we did on this tour.
Tour at 1300
Report from Hafsúlan: Shortly after the Harbor we stopped at Akurey and saw thousands of Puffins. A lot of them were sitting on the island in front of their earth tunnels. Once we came into the area were we usually spot the whales we encountered one Minke Whale. Unfortunately it surfaced only three times and disappeared. We went on with the search and stopped at three folks of feeding birds but no signs of bigger whales around. During the tour we saw between 4 to 7 Harbor Porpoises until we got a call about White Beaked Dolphins in another area. We headed straight there and found 5 plus individuals. It was a great end of the tour as they surfaced many times in a beautiful sunshine.
Tour at 1000
Report from Elding: this was a single-species tour (Minke Whale) but an excellent one as many showed themselves to us. We headed out towards our other boat, Hafsúlan, as we had heard that they had been having some luck with both Minke Whales and White-beaked Dolphins. While the Dolphins had vanished into the deep water by the time we arrived on the scene, there were still plenty of Minke Whales around. It is a careful estimate that we saw 8-12 Minke Whales on this tour, some only once while others popped up time and time again, and as we were forced to set off for home as we were running out of time, the Minkes were still popping up as if they were trying to say goodbye. Finally it is worth to note that Akurey, the Puffin Island where we most often stop by before we go out to see whales, was wonderful today, loaded with Puffins on land and lots on the water too. A terrific tour!
Tour at 0900
Report from Hafsúlan: This morning we stopped at the Puffins on the island Akurey before we headed further out into Faxaflói Bay. We did not sail for a long time when we found the first Minke Whales of the day. There were 3+ around in the same area but as they were not easy to look at we decided to sail further into the bay. It turned out to be the right decision as we found 10+ White Beaked Dolphins. They were great to look at, surfaced many times in different distances. In the end of the tour we encountered 3 more Minke Whales surfacing at the same time with 3 Harbor Porpoises in between. We saw the cute small animals several times during this tour it might have been 20+ all together. The happy ending of this tour was a Minke Whale that surfaced less than 5 meters away in front of us. Great start in the day in a calm and sunny bay