Thursday, 14 April 2015

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: What an afternoon, sun was out and very strong. I think ony 10 out of 122 passengers made use of the floatation suits we offer on board to keep warm. Also the swell had calmed down but holding on to the rails was important still as boat was listing side to side, easy to forget when the whales capture your attention and your trying to get some nice pictures. Always hold on! The whales were also at there best today. We had 3 sub-adult humpback whales, 1 seen on the way out and quite elusive, surfacing for 3-5 breathes then diving for 5-10 minutes, still a couple of nice flukes (whale tail above the water). The other two were further out and busy feeding of the shoals of krill and capelin in the area, it was incredible, lunge feeding and rolling over and over again. You could see the eye, baleen plates and ventral plates as they did so. 2 minke whales were also in the area rolling and lunge feeding and a small flock of northern gannets torpedoing into the sea too. Just incredible. On the way out to the 2 feeding humpbacks we also encountered a very relaxed and slow traveling pod of 10-15 white beaked dolphins and on the way back to port another minke whale. All in all a very successful, beautiful and productive whale watching day. 

- Megan Whittaker

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: Unlike the last previous days we had some swells out in the bay on this morning tour but the weather was nice and weak winds. The boat moved around a little bit and caused a few green faces, many passengers had taken the complimentary seasickness pills that we offer for free so most could enjoy the wildlife on this tour. After some sailing out we spotted some splashes in the distance. Closer to the area we found the guilty ones, a pod of 10-15 white-beaked dolphins. This pod of dolphins surfaced fast and was spread out in a large area, probably busy chasing fish. We got good views when some individuals surfaced closer to us and we could spend some time with the dolphins. After a while we wanted to continue further out in the bay. On our way out we passed through some really cool low clouds or mist, like a wall of mist we headed into it and came out on the other side. A spectacular weather condition! Further out we could enjoy a humpback whale, it was very relaxed and didn't go for many deeper dives. We were always waiting for the fluke to come up, after we got to see it in some distance when we approach the animal but after that one time it didn't fluke anymore. All could take photos of this humpback and it was close to the boat on several occasions. On the way back we saw one more humpback and a pod of dolphins that raced up to us and went under the boat!

- Marcus Bergström

Bird species seen on todays tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, glaucous gull, Iceland gull, kittiwake, black-headed gull, lesser black-backed gull, grayleg goose, puffin and eider duck.