Tour at 17:00
Report from Elding: We decided to make a try to find "Þröstur" the humpback whale that our boat Eldey had rediscovered on the tour at 14:00. So we headed out into the swells again for the third time today. It was bumpy and rocky but the complimentary overalls kept us dry and warm. We managed to find "Þröstur" in the same area and we were glad we succeeded. He/she put on a great show for us, actively feeding with several lunge-feeding sequences close to the boat. The journey back to harbour got really rough! Luckily we had some really hardcore passengers that managed it perfectly. We will see how tomorrow will be it looks even worse, weather wise...
- Marcus Bergström
Tour at 14:00
Report from Eldey: Passengers were warned for this trip, the weather was expected to be worse than this morning ! Still, sun was shining when we left the harbour. The boat was not even shaking that much, for a while the trip was nice ad even warm. After sailing a long time, aiming offshore, we spotted a blow. It took us a while before finding the source of this small geyser but we eventually found a humpback whale. "Þröstur" was back again. During our sighting of this animal the wind picked up and the boat started to rock pretty hard. It did not prevent us from having great sights of the humpback, we could see the fluke several time and we even got one spectacular tail slap ! While following this whale, we noticed huge splashes in the distance. There were several white-beaked dolphins jumping together, resulting in splashes quite spectacular for dolphins ! We could quickly join them and they became interested by our boat. They dashed toward us and came under the boat, then surfaced several times close to the front of the boat. It was a fun show for us just after an amazing humpback whale. During our time with the cetaceans the wind kept on getting stronger and we got shaken pretty badly unfortunately for some unlucky passengers that proved the seasick bags to be useful. It is hoped that the remaining passengers had fun on a roller coaster ride ! Braving the rough sea conditions, we made it home well and alive. Whales and stormy sea, this is what adventure is about !
- Guillaume Calcagni
Tour at 13:00
Report from Elding: We had some strong winds today and the wind was only going to get worse during the day so the passengers were well informed of the situation. We sailed out in pretty good conditions but once we left the harbour the boat was rocking a lot. But we didn't let that ruin our tour and we were actually very happy that we spotted a minke whale very early on. This individual was moving quite fast so it was pretty hard to follow it in the beginning but we stayed with it and after a while this animal actually came really close to the boat. When it moved closer to the boat we could see very clearly that this was an individual that we know, this was Tap. We were so happy to see Tap again because this means that he survived the whaling season since the season is over for this summer. Very good news for our friend Tap. We stayed for a while with Tap but then went on into the winds to look for some other species. Unfortunately we weren't able to spot any other animals on this tour but Tap totally made up for that.
- Katrín Björnsdóttir
Tour at 10:00
Report from Eldey: On this morning the wind was rather strong when we left the harbour in search of cetaceans. Since our boat is very large and we had the wind in our back the ride out into the bay was surprisingly smooth. We spotted a blow not far away out into the bay and found a minke whale being the source of it. Trying to follow it and getting a better look at the animal unfortunately failed. It seemed that the animal was playing hide and seek with us, so we decided to leave it be and keep on going west. Only short travels later we had another minke whale, and another one..., they just kept on appearing all around the boat during the rest of our tour. We even spotted at least two white- beaked dolphins, but since they were very elusive barely anyone managed to see them, so we continued our travels. Just as we were heading back to the harbour we got a last amazing look at a minke whale surfacing incredibly close infront of our boat. Estimating around 6 different individuals of minke whales.
- Michaela Buchbauer
Tour at 09:00
Report from Elding: The weather this morning was not on the good side. Strong winds and out in the bay the swells grew high. Started searching towards the north getting some protection from the mountains. But the journey remained rough throughout the tour. After 40 minutes of sailing we managed to find a minke whale in the rough sea. It could have been two individuals in the area so we stayed a while, trying our best to get good looks of the animal. It surfaced very violently in the swells so when it came close we managed to get a few great looks of this individual. After we had lost sight of this minke we scouted the area outside the entrance to Hvalfjörður but we didn´t find any more cetaceans on this tour. We returned to harbour after a nice sailing close to the coastline of Reykjavik.
- Marcus Bergström
Birds seen on todays tour: kittiwakes, black-backed gulls, arctic terns, atlantic puffins, northern fulmars, northern gannets, common guillemots, arctic skuas.