Thursday, 20 August 2015

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsulan: The clouds were threathening rain again but like all today´s tours it stayed dry. The seas were choppy, more white caps than the tours before but all in all it was not bad and as we approached Reykjavik the sea´s were like a mirror and no swell. We traveled for an hour to the area we have been successful on previous tours and again þröstur the humpback whale  was waiting for us. Acted very strangely, trumpet blows, logging, very short dives. At first we though we might be thought we might be getting to close but then it tail lobbed and lots of whale poo came out. Must have been having digestive problems, which can also irritate these animals. We also saw a pod of about 5 white beaked dolphins but they were quite difficult to keep track of. It was a nice tour to end the day.

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: On our way to the main sighting arias of the day we spotted two minke whales that were travelling quite close to each other. when we got closer to them they split up and for a while we had them on each side of the boat. While watching them we saw a blow in 300 meters distance and that turned out to be another minke whale. We were following these minkes for about 20 minutes but they were but they were a bit challenging to follow so we decided to keep on going further out in hope to find something else. After a while searching we got news from another whale watching boat that they had spotted the humpback Þröstur. When we got to the humpback it was clearly feeding and we even got so lucky to see it lunge feeding few times within 100 meters from our boat. We followed the humpback for nearly 30 half an hour until we started to head back to harbour after an amazing show of the humpback whale.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This tour was very much like the last in terms of weather. It did rain as we boarded the boat but were lucky once leaving the harbour as it kept dry for the rest of the tour. Þröstur the humpback whale was where we left him and traveling slowly from one flock of birds to the next, showing him/her beautiful fluke as it dove deep. Once þröstur did a mouth gape high out of the water which allowed all our passengers to see the dark baleen plates of the upper jaw. One last fluke from Þröstur and we left searching for dolphins that we found after 20 minutes of searching. A pod of about 5 white-beaked dolphins which were really difficult at first to follow as they were chasing after some fish but then at the end they slowed down to give the passengers a nice look. On the way home we spotted a pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises but only a few on board saw them as they were very quick. þröstur was the star of this show. 

- Megan Whittaker

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: it was fully cloudy but it kept dry except for few drops in the end of the tour. We began our with the humpback whale Þröstur that we saw feeding with a pod of 3-4 white beaked dolphins. After a great time with the humpback for about 20 minutes we kept on going and spotted 2 minke whales but they were unfortunately very elusive and very hard for us to follow. We decided to keep on going and then found a group of 5-6 white beaked dolphins. They seemed curious and came towards us and swam around our boat until we ran out of time and had to head back to land. What a great end to a tour!

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey and Hafsúlan: Due to a high number of passengers we went out with two boats this morning. Though today was a little windier than yesterday we still were treated to a flat ocean giving us another day of smooth sailing. Recent history at finding whales has told us to sail quite far out into the bay to find them and this was the case again. We had sailed for around an hour before both boats spotted a blow in the distance, from this distance this could only have been one species. The humpback whale! This large whale is much easier to spot far away than smaller whales. This was the individual þröstur once again, almost every tour we find this humpback that much really like us here. Þröstur was resting and feeding, so we got a mix of surface time with the whale and some more acrobatic movements as the whale was constantly lifting the tail high into the air. Later on we found a minke whale that we saw a couple of times close to us but wasn´t as active as the humpback whale. Hafsúlan were lucky to spot a pair of minke whales travelling together and a small individual minke whale that could not be more than 5 meters. A small pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins gave Hafsúlan a short encounter, with most passengers seeing the animals but they were harder to photograph. During the tour there was also plenty of birdlife around, we are still seeing our beloved Atlantic puffins though it is the end of their season here in Iceland.

- Jack Ball and Marcus Bergström

Bird species seen on today´s tours: northern fulmars, northern gannets, kittiwakes, lesser black-backed gulls, greater black-backed gulls, glaucous gulls, atlantic puffins, arctic skuas, arctic terns, common guillemots, razorbills and manx shearwaters.