Thursday, 31 January 2013

Tour at 13:00 Report from Elding. What a wonderful end to the month. The weather was at its best with blue skies, snow capped mountains, no wind, a little bit of swell and a wintery crisp air. We sailed out once again from Sandgerði and once again we were not disappointed. Just 10 minutes of leaving the harbour we could see a massive flock of Gannets in the distance. As we got closer we noticed large black shapes emerging from the surface ORCA!! A family of 5 feeding, travelling and resting together. The male was particularly unusual as his tall triangular dorsal fin was folded over like "Free Willy´s" fin. This male had obviously been trouble in early life, either hit by a ship propeller or entagled in fishing line, nets or plastic. They were incredible to watch as they surfaced close, and the male even brought up his fluke (tail) a couple of times. After a while we decided to leave the orca in peace and see if any other whales were around. We did a big sweep and then headed back to the harbour, about 10 minutes of reaching the harbour one of the passengers said he saw a big fluke coming up and then going down again so we stopped the boat and low and behold a Humpback Whale. Great weather, orca and now a humpback whale, it really couldn´t get better than this. BUUUUTTTTTT...The humpback was breath taking as it surfaced just a meter or so from the boat a couple of times and brought up his/her almighty fluke. Perfect way to end the month and hopefully start the new month. Fantastic day.

Seabirds seen on today´s tour include; Gannets, Razorbills, Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Shags, Cormorants, Gloucous Gulls and Eider Ducks

Pictures and video will be available tomorrow