Thursday, 28 May 2015

Tour at 17:00
Report from Elding: During this tour, we could enjoy the sun setting above the Reykjanes Peninsula, as we headed out from Grindavík again. After two amazing tours full of animals, we very soon spotted a small pod of 3-5 white-beaked dolphins. We only saw them for a couple of minutes as they were crossing the path of our boat at a very high speed. Since they seemed to be traveling towards another area, we continued our search for other cetaceans. Shortly after this encounter, we saw a basking shark again that was feeding right underneath the water surface, so that we could see its huge dorsal fin. While we were watching the basking shark, we also spotted large blows of whales in some distance. We tried to get a little closer to this pair of whales, but, first, we had some troubles finding them again. However, in the end, we managed to get a closer look at the two humpback whales traveling in the glare of the setting sun - the perfect end of an amazing day at sea. 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 13:00
Report from Elding: Hoping to find the orcas again that we had seen in the morning, we went out from Grindavík. So we headed west towards the same area on our search for cetaceans. We did not see orcas, instead we were rewarded with two, maybe three minke whales, that were feeding in that area together with many species of sea birds. They changed their directions constantly, but they stayed close to our boat, so all of our passengers had the chance to see them. Additionally, we spotted a basking shark, that was also feeding very close to the water surface so that its large dorsal fin was visible above. We had a lot to see with the minkes, the shark and all the birds feeding around our boat, before we headed back to the harbour.

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 09:00
Report from Elding: Due to rough sea conditions off Reykjavík we started our tours in Grindavík today. We had to deal with strong winds there as well, but the tour was still comfortable thanks to shelter from the Reykjanes Peninsula. It didn't take a long time until we came across a pod of orcas, also called killer whales, consisting of 6 or more individuals. It was amazing to see the group hunting together not very far from land. A few times they came close to our boats and many passengers got to take nice pictures of them. We were able to spend some time with them before we had to start our journey back to the harbour. Lots of passengers with smiling faces were leaving our boat in the end of this tour. 

- Hanna Michel

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittikwakes, puffins, common guillemots, lesser black-backed gulls, great black-backed gulls, icelandic gulls, and arctic terns.