Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: We started our last trip of the day with a tons of hope in our hearts, the day had been wonderful for whale watching so we were expecting everything tonight. We sailed for a while into the bay but what we found was a big mist coming from the south, we had some reports from others boats telling us that they had seen some animals but it was impossible to see any of them. We didn´t give up and we continued our trip, spotting from time to time different species of seabirds that we are enjoying in this period of the year. After a long time searching and almost when we were thinking about coming back, a minke whale popped up from no where, it was a really fast encounter as far as this animal only surfaced couple of times and then disappeared into the mist. In our way back home we enjoyed the nicest show on board: our singer Bjarni, and we decided to give complimentary tickets to our passengers, wishing everybody to have a better luck with the whales the next time!
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: What an emotional tour for the crew! Our evening tour started a bit slow and ended in an absolutely mind-blowing way. In the beginning, we saw a few dolphins that were a bit shy in the beginning. It took us a while, to get closer to one group, and we could see more dolphins jumping in the distance around us, so it was a bit hard to decide where to go. We followed some of these dolphins for a while, it was a group around 8 white-beaked dolphins. They kept their distance first and didn't seem to be interested in us and were probably looking for food. Apparently, they found some fish after a while and started jumping out of the water and we could see them hunt fish together with a flock of birds also trying to take a bite. This was already very interesting to watch, and then the dolphins seemed to have time to check us out as well. They were coming close, slowly swam from one side of the boat to the other and around us and sort of looking at us from all sides. There were two calves in this group, and one particularly playful one that jumped countless times and also showed us some tail-slapping behaviour - cuteness alarm! After satisfying their curiosity, they moved on and we headed in another direction to look for something else. We sailed for a long time without seeing any further signs of cetaceans and already started to move in the direction of Reykjavik, when we came across a minke whale. We turned around to see this animal again and indeed so it surfacing rather close to us again, maybe 50 m away. So far, so good, this is unusual for minke whales, but then this individual created one of the most memorable moments of my life: Instead of minding it's own business, this minke whale spend at least 30 min around us behaving like a dolphin! It swam from one side to the other, surfaced 2 centimeters away from the boat and just floated right underneath the surface for some moments just looking at us. It swam back and forth and even did something we call spy-hopping a few times, that is raising vertically and head first out of the water to get a better look. It was incredible, mind-blowing, absolutely amazing and extremely rare and we hope that this adorable minke whale stays far, far away from the whaling ships! This shows just once more that they deserve our respect and protection.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsulan: It was very pleasant tour, sea surface was calm like a mirror reflecting clouds. Just after going out from harbor we could enjoy presence of puffins sitting on the water. But birds of the day were common guillemots and their chicks. This small balls of fur accompanied their parents in the deep water far away from land nevertheless this babies cannot fly. Though the conditions for spotting animals were perfect it take us a while to find minke whale. There was 3 around us, one of them surprised with popping out just right next to the boat, and another was particularly small. This whales didn’t seem to be interested in interacting with us, so we went further. Till we were on the way back haven’t seen anything else. Then fortunately we found a flock of feeding birds and under them another 3 minke whales. This time animals were much more active. We were able to see them feeding from very close and also feeding birds what was quite exciting! We came back to the harbor in great moods!
- Ewa Malinowska
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Just like the morning, the sea was still very calm without any waves around and even a few sun rays were making it through the layer of clouds sometimes. On our search for cetaceans, we first came across a large flock of feeding birds on our way out into the Bay (after catching a brief glimpse of a harbour porpoise popping up). And this area proved to not be only very good for birds but for the minke whales as well! After checking the area around the birds for a few minutes, we saw at least 4 minke whales around. We could see a lot of fish on the fish finder that we have onboard, so the minkes were most likely feeding on the small schooling fish that the birds were after as well. We were able to see several of them at the same time and just waited for them to surface around us. It was not difficult to spot them in the great sea conditions we had today, and every now and then we were lucky enough to have them surfacing just 30-50 m away from us. They didn't seem to be bothered by our presence which is always what we want. After spending a good time watching the minkes, we moved on to look for some more animals saw a few white-beaked dolphins far away through our binoculars. After heading into that direction, however, it was 2 of these cool dolphins that we saw in front of us. We got few looks at them but kept our distance as they didn't seem to be very interested in us. Later, another two dolphins showed up, indicating that there may have been more dolphins in the greater area. Before we ran our of time, we took another circle on the Bay and then started our way back to the harbour with one more minke whale crossing our path.
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsulan: Sea and weather conditions were prestine for whale watching today. As we were sailing out, the sea was calm and the sky was mostly cloudy. After only about 20 minutes we already spotted a pod of about 4 white-beaked dolphins. We got a really good look at them, but as they were really calm and possibly resting, so we didn´t stay too long with them. As we continued to sail out and sailing through our main sighting area, we spotted some minke whales. They were a little more difficult to stay with and get a good sighting as they surfaced very unpredictably. We waited quite long for one individual to surface, so we decided to continue to look around more. Luckily we spotted a big blow in the distance, which gave us hope that we spotted another species. As we got closer we saw a whale surface and as it was going down it fluked! We were very excited to have spotted a humpback whale! We got closer and even though it was always surfacing a little far away from us, we got a good look at the whale and after a few surface sequences we headed home satisfied.
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: The sea conditions today were amazing and the spotting conditions as well, just a bit of rain annoyed us during the second half of the tour. After sailing out into the Bay for some time, similar to yesterday, we came across a lot of white-beaked dolphins that we first spotted far in the distance when they were jumping out of the water. We kept our direction towards them and on our way spotted a second group of them that we got a bit closer too first. The dolphins appeared to be hunting, they were going back and forth, in circles and all in different directions at a high speed with some birds hovering above them waiting for their opportunity to catch fish. We spent a while with them and admired them jumping out of the water while feeding as well. In total, there were probably 20+ around in the greater area. Suddenly also a minke whale popped up in front of us, just about 250 m away that we saw a few times before it went for a dive. A bit later, a second minke whale appeared further in the distance. However, the dolphins were still jumping and hunting close to us. On our way back, another minke whale showed up but it was very far away and may have only been seen by a few passengers that were looking in the right direction at that moment.
- Alberto Alejandro
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull, arctic tern, arctic skua, atlantic puffin, common guillemot, razorbill and eider duck.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. Its going to be an overcast day, but very good sea conditions. We hope you are able to join us on the search of these magnificent animals in their natural environment.
