Sunday, 22 March 2015

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan an Elding: because of high number of passengers we went out on two boats in the afternoon. We sailed towards the area where we had seen the dolphins and minke whales were seen in the morning tour. We didn't see and signs of cetaceans until we got to that area. Then we saw splashes in great distance and we soon realized these were white-beaked dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins were all around us, sometimes very close and often seen jumping out of the water. we stayed for a good time with them and saw them feeding with flocks of birds over them. We then saw a blow of a much bigger animal further away. We went to have a better look at it and saw it was a humpback whale! we saw it very often and at one point it surfaced right next to Hafsúlan and then swam under it so we could easily see the whole body of the animal! What a great day!

Sigurlaug and Megan

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: the conditions were difficult on the way out, then we had to sail into the swells so the boat rocked quite a bit up and down. we went trough one long and hard hailstorm but luckily it finally cleared up and we got much better visibility to search for cetaceans. We saw first a blow in some distance, when we got closer we saw a minke whale, soon we saw another one! they were being very difficult to follow and spent a long time underwater between surfacing. there was a lot of fish in the area, we could both see it with our fishfinder and it was very clear because huge flocks of birds kept diving down for food. under the birds we saw many white-beaked dolphins feeding, at least 20! they came always with much speed to the surface making splashes, the fish was constantly on its move and we followed this amazing show. we watched how the dolphins and the birds followed it and never slowed down. this was just an incredible sight. we spent as long time out there as we could but when we were running out of time we sailed back to land.   

 Sigurlaug

Birds seen on todays tour include: Black-backed gulls, iceland gulls, european shags, great cormorants, eider ducks, northern fulmars, northern gannets, razorbills, common guillemots and kittiwakes.