Thursday, 24 March 2016

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey and Hafsúlan: Easter week is proving to be very busy, a nice get away to the land of ice and fire. We again took out two boats to accomodate the 260 passengers we had this afternoon. Unfortunately the weather did take a turn for the worst but we did manage to get out offshore and see the blows from three humpback whales, a pair and a loner. The loner whale was awesome and we were able to watch for a while. It was unfortunate that the humpback whale was always heading into the the wind and rain so it was difficult to watch but there was plenty of opportunity to get some nice pictures. Eldey sailed further to the southwest and saw able to encounter two pods of white-beaked dolphins, first pod there were 1-2 and then the second pod they saw about 2. However both were very elusive and very difficult to follow. A pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises were also encountered by Eldey but neither the white-beaked dolphins or the harbour porpoises showed themselves very well so Eldey had to give out complimenatry tickets to their passengers. 

- Megan and Marcus. 

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey and Hafsúlan: It was a light rain in the sky when we set sail out in the bay this morning. We had two boats out due to many passengers. The wind was steadily increasing during the tour but in the beginning we sailed out with the wind in our backs. The humpback whales were waiting for us today and it didn't take long until both boats had humpbacks around them. We could see flukes (the tail of the whale) raised high up as they went for deeper dives, amazing! At least 12 humpbacks were seen in the area today, we had one pair surfacing together really close to the boat and going for deeper dives together. So hopefully many passengers got pictures with two whales together! Towards the end both boats started to search for dolphins and Hafsúlan was first to find a pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins playing around the boat and swimming under it. Eldey soon joined and could also see several pods in the area maybe 15-20 dolphins and with them some calves that were leaping out of the water. A very cute ending of todays successful morning tour.

- Marcus and Megan

Bird species seen on todays tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, shag, greater black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, glaucous gull, Iceland gull, kittiwake, black-headed gull, common gull, herring gull, long-tailed duck and eider duck.