Thursday, 19 June 2014

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: The weather this evening as we headed out was quite rough with some white capped waves and strong winds. Despite that we were quite confident as we headed out and began our search. We decided to go pretty far out to sea this time around and try our luck there. After sailing for about an hour we spotted a large splash about a kilometer away from the boat. We saw it again and identified it as a breaching whale! But it was quite far away and we were unable to identify the species. We raced to where we had seen the individual and on our way found a Minke whale. This individual was very elusive though and we only got a glimpse of it as we lost track. We searched on but the weather worsened fast and we headed back to Reykjavik with unfortunately no good sightings today. The effort the passengers put into the search however must be commended and as a compensation we gave all of our passengers complimentary tickets. These are good for two years on any whale watching tours. We do hope to see you folks again.

-Ívar Elí

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We really were not in luck with the weather today, it rained pretty much throughout our evening trip. And on top of that the wind had picked up some more and made it quite difficult to spot whales, dolphins or porpoises among the waves. But we did discover a pair of White-Beaked Dolphins surprisingly early on. We stayed with them as they roamed around, but as it was quite difficult to spot them we decided to move on. We headed further out into the bay, but had no luck in finding anything else to watch. So we turned around after a while and watched a Minke Whale near the area we had left behind before. We spotted the blow of another individual a bit further away but decided to stay with the individual closer to us, since it was almost time to return back to Reykjavík. Due to the direction of the wind at least the ride back was a lot more pleasant than the way out had been...

- Linda

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: The sky had cleared up a little bit since this morning as we headed towards the area were we spotted some cetaceans earlier. When we got there it seemed like the wild life had slowed down but we still got to see around 4 Minke whales. They surfaced slowly around us inbetween long deep dives, surprising us as they surfaced rather close to the boat. Two minke whales seemed to be traveling together as they were very synchronized when they surfaced at the same time, pretty close to each other. It was a bit of a wait inbetween the sightings of the minke whales but we still managed to get a good look at them.

- Freydís Ósk

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Unfortunately the wind had picked up a little bit more since our last trip, but in turn we had less rain than on the morning trip. We headed out into the same area where we had seen lots of Minke Whales earlier in the day and found some more this time around. Again, they were quite difficult to follow, but we got some good looks at another 2 pods of Harbour Porpoises (around 5-7 animals in total). Out of the 4-6 minkes we saw the last one took us completely by surprise when it surfaced right next to the boat! And again our researchers identified it almost on the spot: "Aura" was the name of this very friendly and/or curious individual. After another close surfacing we had to head back to the harbour, but were quite happy with the way the tour had turned out...

- Linda

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: It was cloudy and rainy as we headed out but only after about 30 minutes of sailing we spotted the first Minke whale out of 4-6 animals that we saw in the tour. The animals were surfacing fast and seemed to be feeding because of their constant changes of direction. Some of the minke whales surfaced very close to the boat and even one of them rolled behind the boat! It was kind of hard choosing which animal to watch as they were surfacing around the boat, couple of animalt at once and even around 8-10 Harbour porpoises surfaced inbetween them. It was a good tour with the minke whales and there seemed to be a good amount of wild life in the bay!- Sigurlaug & Freydís

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It was a fairly grey morning in the Bay that we sailed out into for our first tour today. It took us around 40 minutes to get to the area where we often see the whales on our tours. Soon after we arrived we found the first Minke Whale - from a total of at least 7 or 8 different individuals on this trip. Even though we saw quite many different minkes most of them were quite difficult to keep track of, either they were moving quite quickly or behaving very elusive. But towards the end of our visit with them we were quite lucky as one individual showed up quite close to our boat and gave us some nice looks. Our researchers on board were able to identify that friendly individual right away: it was "Amico" which is Italian for friend! =)) Apart from the minkes we also saw 3 pods of Harbour Porpoises on this trip (around 6-9 individuals in total), some of them even let us come quite close! All in all, a tour with typical Icelandic weather and nice looks at two different species...

- Linda

Birds seen on today´s tour include: Fulmars, Common Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, Arctic Terns, Puffins, Manx Shearwaters, Black-backed Gulls, Arctic Skuas, Northern Gannets.