Thursday, 28 June 2012

Tour at 20:30

Report from Hafsùlan : WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW !!!! What an amazing tour ! We saw at least three Minke Whales, one came really close to the boat, we actually smelled it before we could see it.  And then more offshore we followed two Humpback Whales for a while, we got to see one breaching a couple of time right in front of the boat. We were already running out of time so started our way back to the harbour already really happy of what we saw. But that wasn't it!  Wildlife is unpredictable ! We stopped to watch a breaching Minke Whale and moreover we had to stop later on our way back to see the most impressive spectacle you could see in a whale watching tour. A Humpback Whale was breaching, tail slapping, flippers waving and slapping, belly up tail slapping, ... for half an hour !!! One person had emotional tears! All of that under a beautiful warm sunset and with some live music. That was just unbelievable! Probably one of the best tour of the year !

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan : little did we know at the start of this tour that it would be almost better than the 1000 tour on the Elding (same guide was working on both tours). We did see some 2 Minke Whales into the tour but once we were convinced that they had dived down and were gone, we sailed off in search of more of their kind. There was about a twenty minute period when we saw nothing and were in fact wondering if the earlier whales would be it on this tour. But nature had more and better in store for us than that. All of a sudden we saw a breaching (jumping) Minke Whale which leaped up several times to our delight and another one which did lunge feed (driving a school of fish up to the surface and then making a quick attack, swallowing the whole lot). But as if that wasn't enough, the best was still left to come. We only had about twenty minutes left until we would reach harbour, were pleased with everything so far and had even made the travel report. Then our captain and engineer spotted something next to Engey Island. Amazingly there was a breaching, fin-slapping Humpback Whale just off Reykjavik!!! We couldn't believe our luck! This whale was in a perfect show mood, almost begging for our attention, and we could not have asked for a better end to our tour in our wildest dreams. The smiles on the faces of the crew and passengers alike during the short sail back were almost brighter than the midnight sun! :)

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding : We sailed in really sunny weather even though the wind picked up more! We saw our puffins on Akurey island. We didn't have to sail far to find our first Minke whale, and there was so many birds feeding and activity in the bay close to land to offshore... Sea gulls, fulmars, arctic terns, kittiwakes all over the bay and the guide saw a breaching minke whale while everybody was looking at a whale in another direction unfortunately. We went further, found more whales all really busy feeding at the surface. We saw around 8-10 minkies. Nice tour!

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We stopped to watch Puffins straight after we left the harbor. The Island was great as there were many birds around and the weather was brilliant. Once we were a bit further out in the bay we spotted the first Minke Whale of the tour. After that it did not take us a long time to find a second one and than a third one and another one!!! They were surfacing in many different areas at least 10+ individuals. Some of them came so close to our vessel, that we could see their whole bodies under the surface, other were lunge feeding not far away. Great afternoon in a beautyful sunny bay with many Minke Whales and a lot of birds busy feeding above the whales.

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding : this was a brilliant tour with three species plus of course marine birds. Puffin Island was excellent and a good start to a tour that no one suspected at that point that would be so incredible. We did see some 2-3 Minke Whales not long into the tour and followed them for a little while, they were feeding and did not seem to mind us. But then the fun started for real. Our sistership Hafsúlan informed us that they had found Humpback Whale! We took off towards that area and after scanning the surface for a while, we started seeing some powerful blows but hardly saw any of the whale. As we were sailing towards one of the blows, Captain Vignir spotted some 3-5 White-beaked Dolphins swimming in our direction and decided to take a look at them. Vignir turned the boat to be in tune with the dolphins and then all of a sudden 2 Massive Humpback Whales appeared like from out of nowhere just in front of the boat! We spent some 20-30 minutes in the presence of these amazing gigantic beasts, which seemed to be travelling with the Dolphins as they seemed simply to be travelling together. The whales were just chilling in the surface, sending massive blows into the air and just making the day for all of us. We in the crew and no doubt all the passengers were in seventh heaven as we sailed back to Reykjavik!

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We went straight out into the bay and decided to stop at Akurey on our way home. The first thing that we spotted was a blow in a big distance and it was a big blow! Once we came closer we were sure that we found a Humpback Whale!!! What a great surprise as we haven't seen them for a while. The Humpback was surfacing many times sometimes closer to us and then a bit further away. In between it went for long deep dives and we had to be a bit patient. After we had a great time with the Humpback we went on searching, what took us some time again. Just in the very end we had the first sign of a Minke Whale but it surfaced only once in a distance. When we already headed back towards Reykjavík we got finally a nice surprise as a Minke Whale surfaced just in front of us!!! Great happy ending of a great tour with one Minke and one Humpback!!!