Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: We decided to sail towards the areas where we had seen the minke whales on our earlier tours. On the way there we felt that it was getting colder and our overalls came to a good use in the blowing wind. When we reached the areas where we had sightings we slowed down to have a better look. Splashes were spotted around 300 meters um ahead of us, when we got closer we saw that these were 4-5 harbour porpoises. they surfaced few times within 100 meters so most of our passengers got a brief look at these cute cetaceans. After sailing around in this area with little luck we tried going north, there we spotted two minke whales that were traveling separately. Both of them were elusive and only seen 3-4 times relatively far away from the boat. On our way back to land we spotted 4 strong blows towards mount Esja, we got excited and sailed towards it, thinking that now we might finally get a good sighting. Sadly this animals was never seen again so we didn't even get a chance to see which species it was. On tours like these were it is difficult to spot the wildlife we offer our passengers a second chance with us so they can come on another tour with us in the future.
-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out with an overcast sky and some fog, this did not change during the tour. The sea state was still calm just a little bit of swell. The first animal we spotted was a minke whale while we were still quite close to land. The animal surfaced a number of times quite close to the boat which gave us the chance for some good looks at it. Going further we saw some pretty impressive skua versus gulls sky battles. We made a big circle around the bay scanning for wildlife we did not spot any however until we decided to turn back towards Reykjavik. On our way back we spotted some harbour porpoises, a group of about 4 individuals.We only managed to see them surfacing a few times before they disappeared.
- Anouk de Plaa
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: The morning started with some wind coming for the south west, so the Faxaflói Bay was sheltered by the Reykjanes Peninsula. The sea state was very calm, no big waves, so it was an easy morning to spot some whales and dolphins. After one hour of sailing we spotted our first animal of the tour, a minke whale. The animal showed up several times before it went for a deep dive, and in the time we all were waiting for the whale to show up again in the surface, another individual, again a minke whale, surprised us some hundreds meters far away. We spend some time with these animals, they were going up and down, giving us good chances to have a good look at them.We kept going on our sailing and suddenly our researcher spotted 3 white beaked dolphins in front of the boat. They very a bit elusive since the beginning so we stayed there for around 10 minutes looking at them from the distance.Finally, when we were coming back to the harbour a group of 5-6 harbour porpoises came up in the surface in front of the boat toward us. Normally you can see them for just a couple of times because they tend to be a bit shy, but these pod gave us the opportunity to enjoy them for some minutes before they went for a dive.
- Alejandro García
Bird species seen on todays tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, Manx shearwater, great skua, arctic skua, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, black-headed gull, kittiwake, razorbill, common guillemot, puffin, great northern diver and eider duck.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík today. The sky is fully clouded and we are expecting a little bit of wind. The sea conditions are fairly good this morning.
