Thursday, 27 March 2014

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan and Elding: 4 Species this afternoon. Amazing! The swell was still high out in the bay so we started where we left of on the last tour, Hafnafjörður. We first sailed out in a snow storm but the sun soon made it through the clouds and sunny the rest of the tour until arriving back in the harbour. It was long sailing before finding our first cetacean and it was a pod of White-beaked Dolphins which were feeding with a lot of leaping and sharking. Then after a while we saw a big blow from a very large Humpback Whale, it was huge! the sound from the high pressure blow was incredible. Then in the distance we saw another blow, we thought another Humpback but on closer inspection it was a Fin Whale. The last time we saw a Fin Whale was September 2012. So nice to see it again. Then more WB Dolphin came leaping over (all in all maybe 40-50 dolphins, 10-15 in the first group and then lots more when with ethe Fin Whale), Then a quick glimpse of a Minke Whale also showed up. It was just incredible the whole of the afternoon.

- Megan and Freydis

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: There was high swells out in the bay this morning so we decided to take out boat to Hafnafjörður were we get shelter from the land and sea conditions where a lot better. After about 30 mins of sailing we saw a couple fo small flocks of birds and some splashes underneath. These splashes come from Harbour Porpoises, about 4-6 of them. Always hard to follow as they are very small and most of the time very shy so we continued on our tour along the peninsula. After another 20-30 minutes we finally saw a blow from a Humpback Whale. This was a very small individual maybe only 12-14m long, that to be travelling along completely at ease with our presence, surfacing close and even playing, blowing bubbles and surfing the swells. It is always amazing to encouter these animals, in the wild and enjoying our company as much as we were theirs. Wonderful morning tour.

-Megan

Birds seen on todays tour include: Eider Ducks, Shags, Kittiwakes, Glaucous Gulls, Black-backed Gulls, Fulmars, Gannets, Long-tailed Ducks.