SUNDAY, 5 FEBRUARY 2017

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: Finally! Great sea conditions and the sun rising above the horizon and showing its beautiful face again, we have waited for this a long time. Full of hopes we went out to search for cetaceans. We covered a large part of the Bay and encountered hundreds of different sea birds along the way which had already woken up from their beauty sleep. However, no whales or dolphins wanted to show themselves to us. We kept searching and after a loong time spotted a pod of 4-6 harbour porpoises! Though usually very shy around boats, we we able to spend a few minutes with them and watch them feed together with some northern fulmars and gannets. They were rushing trough the water creating a lot of splashes. The porpoises are probably one of the most challenging species for photographers but we had some talented passengers that managed to get shots of these cute, little and extremely quick animals! Well done! But of course we want to show our passengers more than just porpoises and therefore decided to offer everyone a complimentary ticket to join us on another tour and hopefully then there will also be some whales and/or dolphins around! These tickets can be used in Reykjavik or in Akureyri in the North of Iceland (http://www.whalewatchingakureyri.is/). 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: Once upon a time, February decided to make up for the crappy weather of January. After an enjoyable but windy weather in the morning, Faxa Bay displayed the most glorious sea conditions since summer ended. There were hardly any waves, the wind was reduced to a gentle breeze, but the biggest surprise was coming for this gigantic globe of light in the middle of the blue sky... The one and only sun ! This capricious star, which has been playing hard to get for the past months, finally decided to drench us in warmth and light. We could even make use of our sunglasses, these artifacts we were sentimentally keeping as relics from a sunny past that seemed gone forever ! Our awe and enjoyment of the weather was short, as suddenly, half an hour after departure, we met stationary whale watching boats. Out of nowhere, an important pod of about 30 white-beaked dolphins surfaced ! It was love at first sight. Having a precise count was hard because they were spreading in every directions, but the biggest difficulty lied in the celerity of their movement. The cetaceans did not seem to be elusive, they were circling around us, but they were dashing and surfacing within fractions of seconds, so taking pictures of them was a tricky task. Nonetheless we could sight them abundtantly in the sun, and had close looks. After enjoying them for a while, we ventured further offshore in the bay still in perfect spotting conditions, and found about 5 - 10 more individuals of dolphins in the bay. It would have been perfect with such a sea to find bigger cetaceans, but we can't get too greedy. Plenty of splendid dolphins under the sun made of this afternoon a fairy tale !

- Guillaume Calcagni

Bird species sighted on today's tour include: eider duck, great cormorant, great black-backed gull, northern gannet, icelandic gull, glaucous gull, razorbill & northern fulmar

Tour at 09:00: RUNNING

Tour at 13:00: RUNNING

We will be sailing out from the Old harbour in Reykjavík this morning. The weather is nice and still.