Sunday, 16 August 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: We went a little further south on this tour and soon came across our first minke whale. We watched it for a few minutes and then moved on towards an area with lots of flocks of feeding birds. Inbetween the huge bird swarm we spotted another minke whale probably feeding with them. While watching the minke we spotted some big splashes and also a couple of blows in some distance and decided to check that area out. On the way, we came across two pods of 3-5 white-beaked dolphins each and saw them traveling next to us at high speed. However, we never spotted the animal belonging to the big blows we had seen earlier. Finally, we went to an area where a humpback whale had been spotted and after quite a while of sailing we found "Þröstur" again. As we were watching this humpback, a pod of about 8-10 white-beaked dolphins suddenly showed up and moved all around the humpback whale. They came also close to our boat, swam underneath and checked us out. It was an amazing encounter and no one minded that we were pretty late on this tour.

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 14:00

Report from Eldey: Like all previous tours from today, the weather was cloudy, windy, rainy and cold. However, the sea conditions were pretty good and that made up for the all the rain and wind. After about an hour we found the humpback whale Þröstur again. After it went for many deep dives, it spent much time close to the water surface without long dives inbetween. And similar to this morning, 2 scattered minke whales showed up again asking for our attention. When we were running out of time, we waved Þröstur and the minkes good-bye and started heading back to Reykjavík.

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Cloudy sky and light rain put the complimentary overalls to good use during this afternoon tour. We set sail west, out in Faxaflói. After nearly one hour of sailing we came across a huge flock of seabirds. Mainly lesser black-backed gulls were feeding by the thousands close to the surface. We got a short glimpse of a pod of 6-7 white-beaked dolphins, while we passed by. We had spotted a big blow in the distance and we wanted to investigate that. Truly it was a humpback whale, it was slowly moving close to the surface with occasionally deeper dives showing the fluke really nicely. On our way back we stopped by the big flock of birds and got good looks of 2 minke whales feeding in the area. Really nice end to this tour with all the seabirds showing a nice feeding frenzy!

- Marcus Bergström  

Tour at 10:00

Report from Eldey: Like our sister boat Hafsúlan, we went out from Reykjavík in the morning and made our way towards an area where a humpback whale had been spotted. After about 50 min we found it and identified it as the humpback whale "Þröstur" that we have seen on many tours over the last weeks. It was going for deep dives a lot lifting its fluke out of the water; however, it never stayed underwater for a long time. While watching Þröstur we also spotted about 4 scattered minke whales surfacing around us and spent also a while with them. After around half an hour we moved on to look for dolphins. We headed further offshore but didn't find any signs of them and slowly started heading back to the harbour. On the way, we came across Þröstur again which was feeding in the same area as a minke whale and tons of birds. 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We had a calm day as we steamed out on to faxafloi bay. It was a fortunate tour for many reasons, one was the operation for freeing Nettie was underway. the other was we spotted a humpback whale within 30 minutes. It was an individual known as Þröstur. He was fluking a lot! And showing off that beautiful tail of his. Then the just behind it we had the first of 4 minke whales that we spotted. After spending a while with Þröstur we left to find some white beaked dolphins. We didn´t find any dolphins but kept finding more and more minke whales. It was a really great tour and then we had the news that Nettie was freed! Fantastic tour.

-Tommy Torrades

Bird species seen on today´s tours: northern fulmars, northern gannets, kittiwakes, lesser black-backed gulls, Atlantic puffins, arctic skuas, and manx shearwaters.