Thursday, 17 July 2014

Tour at 20:30

Report from Hafsúlan: It was getting a little windier and colder but it did at least not rain on us when we sailed out into the midnight sun. We sailed for over two hours without any sightings accept from a few sea birds flying around, then we spotted a blow or a splash coming from the water surface in about 800 m distance. We headed in that direction in hope to see the animal that had caused that big splash but although we waited there for a while the animal did not show itself. We kept on searching until the captain spotted a Minke whale in some distance from the boat but we were unfortunately as unlucky with that one. We were running out of time and had to head back to the harbor but on the way Bjarni the musician sang for us and kept us entertained. So although we did not get a good sighting on the whales we could enjoy the midnight sun and all of the passengers got a complimentary tickets.

- Sigurlaug

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: we went out towards where we had had the Basking Shark and the rolling Minke Whale earlier today, but apart from a reasonable number of birds, we did not spot either blows or their owners. Then we got a call from another whale-watching boat saying "There is a lot of life here". That sounded all right to us so we headed in their direction but as we were approaching them, a Minke Whale came up from the sea with a good blow along with a clear surfacing. This was our saviour! We spent some good time with this Minke as it seemingly fed on what fish seemed to be present before going towards another Minke closer to the city before heading back home to Reykjavik.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: This afternoon tour started out with a exciting species that was seen after about a hour sail, it was a Basking shark that was feeding near the surface. We got a good look at the shark as it swam right next to the boat so we could see it's whole body under the surface. After spending some time with the basking shark we decided to search for something else. We spotted 1-2 Minke whales but they were very elusive so we kept on searching and luckily found a pod of 5-7 White-beaked dolphins. The dolphins came close and we could see that there were two youngs in the group, surfacing with their mothers. Very soon the dolphins disappeared and we had to keep on searching. Just before our time ran out we managed to see another Minke whale that surfaced close to the boat a couple of times so we were able to get a good look at the animal before we had to sail back towards the harbour.-Freydís Ósk

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan:

We found similar conditions like in the morning tour but sometimes there were even some sunbeams reaching the water surface through the clouds. It took us a long time searching for whales as we were sailing a big circle while bird watching. Today there were many different species of birds out at sea but even they are great this was not enough for a whale watching trip. So we were very happy when we suddenly entered in very alive zone with food for everybody. There we found apart from birds up to 4 Minke Whales and a Basking Shark. This encounter was very special as all were obviously feeding. There were rolling minkes in some distance and also close by the boat. One showed us his rose belly and the white underside of the tail fin called fluke. As they rolled over holding up part of the fluke they created white water around them. One Minke who turned out to be "Midi" (a familiar one with two notches on tip of its fin) was swimming next to the shark. The basking shark was not shy at all and spent time feeding very close to our boat. Once he came up very close along side the vessel and made his whole body visible under water. He seemed to be not fully grown with approximately 5 m body length but even tough very impressive. We saw its white gills of his widely opened mouth shimmering through the surface.  Before we observed just 3 points of his body, the tip of its mouth, the dorsal fin and the tip of its tail fin. After a nice time spent with these animals we left them very pleased.

- Carine Zimmermann

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: This morning the sky was rather dark but we were lucky that it only rained on us for a couple of minutes. After sailing for about 40 minutes we spotted our first of 2-3 Minke whales in the tour. The animal was extremely hard to keep up with as it surfaced quickly and took long deep dives. We sailed around the area and spotted another minke whale that seemed to be just as elusive as the first one. After some searching we spotted some splashes in front of the boat, it was a pod of 4-6 Harbour porpoises that surfaced very close to the boat and gave us a good look at them before they disappeared. As we kept on searching we knew that our time was running out, and the hope for getting a good look at a minke was also.. but all of a sudden a minke whale surfaced right in front of the boat so we got a great view at the animal as it surfaced a couple of times close to us! This minke whale gave the tour a good ending right before we headed back to the harbour. - Freydís Ósk

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We had little wind blowing from the southwest, very little swell and an overcast sky. We started heading out in some rain clouds but the rest of the tour was mainly dry. After a while we found our first Minke Whale which we saw quite well but always a bit in the distance. Then later on we watched a second one but both of them had no remarkable notches which allowed us to identify an individual. After having several looks at these minkes we were returning towards the harbour of Reykjavik but on the way there we stopped once more because of at least 3 White-Beaked Dolphins. They were calmly swimming in a loose formation. As they spent a longer period under water we just saw them around 3 times surfacing before we had to leave them. So finally we managed to see two species one of the baleen whales and one of the toothed whales, not bad!

- Carine Zimmermann

Bird seen on todays tours include: Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Arctic Skuas, Great Skuas, Pomarine Skuas, Northern Gannets, Atlantic Puffins, Common Guillemots, Black Guillemots, Razorbills, Manx Shearwaters, Storm Petrels, Black-Backed Gulls, Arctic Terns & Eider Ducks