Tuesday, 02 September 2014

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: it rained now and then on us this evening while the sun sneaked down between the clouds. It took us longer than one hour to see the first whale of the tour, a minke whale. The whale came up just in front of the boat in about 400 meters distance. It was easy to follow this whale because it was just milling around in the area, travelling slowly around but changing directions quite frequently. The air was so still that we could very easily hear the blow of the animal which mate it even easier to follow it. While enjoying the company of this minke whale we spotted another minke whale in about 500 meters distance. We decided to follow that whale until we had to head back to the harbor.

-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 13:00Report from Hafsúlan: this time we scouted more to the west than on the earlier tour; the conditions were better, more sunshine and less swell. After over one hour of searching, a nearby whale-watching boat alerted us of a small pod (5-6) of white-beaked dolphins. We went there but this pod did not seem to be in a show mood for they went down and vanished. Another pod of similar size was soon seen but again lost. However, luck struck on the way home, we encountered 3 different minke whales and managed to see two of them well, the best one of which our researcher Jonathan managed to idendify as 'Smurf', an old friend that we hadn't seen for three months. Welcome back 'Smurf'!- Baldur ThorvaldssonTour at 09:00Report from Hafsúlan: this was a pleasant tour despite some swell but passengers seemed to be enjoying the swell if anything. We sailed out to areas called 'Marfló' and 'Melakriki', both of which have been productive for us in the past. Suddenly a minke whale showed itself and we managed to see it ok but sadly it showed itself only about three times and then it was gone. We kept searching but unfortunately the search yielded nothing else. As we doubted whether the sighting we had had of this animal had been good enough for the passengers to leave satisfied, and as our ambition is to have them leaving satisfied, we decided to offer complimentary return tickets for those that wanted so that they can come with us again for free within the next two years.- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Birds seen on today's tours include: Lesser black-backed gulls, greater black-back gulls, fulmars, northern gannets,  manx shearwaters, and arctic terns.