Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: In the evening, the sun was shining as we headed out to faxa bay and the wind was slightly calming down. After a short stop at Akurey, a puffin island, where we were able to watch a few puffins sitting on the water in front of the island, we headed further out hoping to find cetaceans in faxa bay. While we were heading out, clouds appeared and covered the beautiful evening sun. It made spotting quite difficult and we had to wait quite long until we spotted 3 White-beaked Dolphins. They surfaced several times next to our boat and we were quite happy to see them after such long time of searching. Unfortunately, the dolphins disappeared suddenly without a trace. While looking for them, we spotted a Minke Whale right in front of the boat, but sadly it only showed up once and we were not able to show it to all our passengers. All in all, it was quite a difficult tour in terms of spotting whales, but on the way back, we enjoyed the beautiful evening light above Reykjavik and listened to the wonderful voice of Bjarne our musician. Thank you everyone for being with us and have a godd night!
- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: What a beautiful afternoon! We were delighted to see some sun after many rainy days. The wind was blowing from the south and it was relatively warm. We stopped at the puffin island Akurey and there were quite few puffins out there today. We made up for that however, by finding lots of puffins out on the bay. After about 30 minutes we spotted the first minke whale right next to a big flock of all kinds of sea birds. Apparently, there was plenty to eat in this area as there were diving northern gannets all around, puffins, guillemots and seagulls. Several minke whales were surfacing all around us this afternoon, some of them with quite a splash and big, stinky blows! There were probably between 7 and 12 minke whales all in all, some of them came extremely close to the boat and they were all swimming quite fast, changing their direction and speed a lot so it was difficult to tell where they would come up. Finally we ran out of time so we had to head back to the harbour but on the way there we enjoyed the great weather and the beautiful scenery that surrounds the Faxaflói bay!
-Arnór Tumi
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: In the afternoon, the wind had calmed down slightly, but all in all it was still windy and the sky was coverd in clouds. This time, we started the tour at Lundey, another puffin island in fron of Reykjavik. There were plenty of Atlantic Puffins around most of them sitting on sea and flying rather than sitting on the island. When we headed out into faxa bay, it took us very long and we had to go very far out until we eventually spotted a Minke Whale. It was quite hard to keep track with it, but we saw it surfacing several times and quite close towards the end. It seemed to travel rather than feed, moving quite fast. Like earlier in the day, we saw many Northern Gannets, which are very impressive seabirds displaying wing spans up to two meters. On the way back, the sun broke through the clouds and we were able to enjoy the nice (and everchanging) Icelandic summer weather. The atmosphre on board was very nice and I enjoyed the chats I had with some of you very much. Thank You for the nice company!
- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúlan: Today we had had weather much like this morning as we began our tour with a visit to the puffins at Lundey. As we arrived at the island we saw quite a few puffins on the sea and even witnessed a puffin being tackled by a pair of skuas and having his food stolen. After seeing nature in action we headed further out onto Faxa bay and started our search for the whales. For the first one and a half hour we had little luck, sailing through large flocks of seabirds and likely areas but unfortunately no whales. Then we heard on the radio that another boat had seen a whale in a flock of birds not far from us. We headed there and saw masses of diving Gannets and lots of seabirds in a feeding frenzy. As we pulled up alongside the flock of birds a Minke whale surfaced right beside us, just ten meters of our left side. We saw this individual a few times, always really close to the boat giving us an amazing look at him. After that encounter we had to head back and were happy with our patience having paid off. On the cruise back we even had some sun which we have had much too little of this summer.
-Ívar Elí Sveinsson
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: In the morning, the wind was blowing a bit and the sky was rather cloud when we started our journey in Reykjavik's harbour. We went to Akurey, the puffin island, first to watch the "penguins of the north" at their breeding grounds. Most puffins seemed to be further out fishing, but we were happy to see some puffins sitting on the water and flying along the boat. When we headed out in the bay, we were happy to see more puffins out on the open sea, but our excitement rose when a Minke Whale surfaced within a flock of feeding seabirds. It was "Humpie" a Minke Whale we see here regularly easily recognizable via the missing tip of his dorsal fin. We enjoyed watching the minke that behaved quite energetic, probably chasing the fish that was around. While watching the minke, at least two more individuals showed up. The area was crowded with birdlife and it was just impressive to see the whales and birds follow the fish, changing location very frequently.
- Hendrik Schultz
Tour at 9:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The weather this morning was cloudy but quite calm as we headed out towards one of the Puffin islands, Lundey. There was a lot of bird life there and we got a good look at the Puffins. As we started our search and headed further out the wind picked a little bit up and so did the waves. After a long search we finally found a pod of 4-6 White-beaked Dolphins that jumped towards us and swam around the boat. We got a great look at them and enjoyed their company for some time. We kept our search on as they seemed to have dissappeared but unfortunatly we didn't find anything else. The bay was still crowded with bird life and we could watch the Norhtern Gannets diving into the ocean and making a big splash.But that's wild life, we can't controle what and when our sighting are but we did see a beautiful group of the cold water dolphins which are only found in this quarter of the world! - Freydís Ósk Hjörvarsdóttir
Birds seen on todays tour: Northern Gannets, Northern Fulmars, Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Greater Black-backed Gulls, Arctic Terns, Common Guillemots, Razorbills, Atlantic Puffins, Black Guillemots, Arctic Skuas, Great Skuas, Kittiwakes.