Sunday, 29 July 2012

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: I don't know where to start...this has been the most amazing weekend! There was no question that we headed straight to the area we have been seeing the pilot whales. When we arrived there we saw that they were still there! I have no words to describe this. The pilot whales were flapping their tales, spy hopping, breaching and surfacing all around us. This was an unforgettable evening with magnificent animals.

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It is not difficult to guess that also on our evening tour we took the long way to Keflavík in order to see "our" pilot whales. On our way we spotted a minke whale surfacing several times. We enjoyed him a little while but than we continued relatively quickly our journey. We found again the big group of pilot whales, they were still feeding. We could see them very close to the boat, one was even jumping and also this tour was an unforgetable experience for all of us.

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: What an amazing tour! Yet again we heard news from Hafsúlan that the pilot whales were back! We had to sail for a very long time, but once we got there we were just amazed! 300 pilot whales actively feeding all around us! Jumping, slapping their tail and surfacing many together....this was just unbelievable! This is very rare sighting in Iceland so yesterday and today was surely magnificent sightings!

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The pilot whales are back, the pilot whales are back! We heard these exciting news from someone who lives close to Keflavík and therefore we decided to have a look in this area. It took us again very long to come to this place but on our way we spotted a minke whale surfacing several times. We did not spend too much time with this whale because we definitely wanted to find the special guests in our bay. And we found them! It was an unbelievable big group of 200 to 300 pilot whales. They were feeding in this area, they moved relatively slowly and it was simply an unforgetable experience for everybody on board. We were so happy to see them in such a good condition after the rescue from yesterday and we enjoyed them very much.

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: It was a lovely morning wind wise but there were some swells out there on the bay. We heard news from our sister vessel Hafsúla that they had dolphins with them, so we headed straight to them. When we arrived we saw a nice pod of white-beaked dolphins! They were actively feeding and we even had diving gannets around us as well. It was very nice to see this but after a while we headed further out to search for something else. We were not disappointed as we found a very nice minke whale! This one was taking long deeper dives but rewarded us by surfacing many times in a row each time. It was a very lovely morning with very lovely animals.

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It was a little bit rainy as we started our morning tour. Although the sea looked relatively calm the boat was going up and down as we sailed out. At the beginning of our search it seamed there is not so much live in the bay, there were almost no sea birds around us and we were circeling around searching for whales. Suddenly we spotted a minke whale. In exactly the same area we also found a group of white-beaked dolphins and also nothern gannets the largest sea birds here in Iceland were hunting fish. We saw the minke only 3 to 4 times but the dolphins were absolutey impressive. They came very close to the boat, we saw their complete white-grey bodies under the water surface. It was great to see gannets and dolphins at the same place actively feeding.