Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Tour at 17:00

Tour from Elding: With amazing conditions we made our way out. There was zero wind and no swell. So we were really optimistic and for good reason because only 15 minutes in to our trip we had a pod of 10 white beaked dolphins just lazing about. They came and passed under the boat a few times and head slapped once or twice. Really cool to have them so close.  Then we spotted the first of 13 minke whales. We didn´t stay long with this individual because it was elusive and this was a good choice because soon we came across lots of sandeels with mackerel feeding on them. We then had in a radius of 1km around the boat about 11 minke whales lunging and rolling. Awesome to have such gracefully animals feeding near us. Sadly we had to make our way back to the harbour but what an amazing tour!

-Tommy Torrades

Tour at 13:00

Tour from Eldey: In still good sea conditions it took not even an hour to spot some white-beaked dolphins. It was a rather large pod of about 10-12 animals including 3 or 4 babies. One of the babies was surfacing on its own most often, while the others stayed close to an adult animal, probably their mothers. They were totally checking us out and coming closer, surfacing and leaping right next to us. Then we moved on trying to find something else and came to an area with numerous flocks of feeding birds with minkes whales surfacing everywhere. We just had to drift in the ocean and wherever we were looking we got to see minke whales rolling over and lunge-feeding together with the birds. It was incredible to just float and having the minkes coming close to us on their own terms. It's difficult to say but there were at least 15 of these small whales in the greater area around us! A very easy-going tour with lots of life in Faxaflói! 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: We were still lucky regarding the weather conditions today with a sea flat like a mirror and the sun shining upon us. Even though we could see far in the distance, it took a little more than an hour to spot cetaceans on this tour. However, then we got to see numerous minke whales and white-beaked dolphins. First, we saw a small pod of 4 of these dolphins but soon noticed a larger pod of 8-10 animals further in the distance. They smaller pod seemed a little shy first but then they decided to come closer and check us out so that we could admire them leaping right next to us. While watching them, a minke whale surfaced in some distance feeding under a flock of sea birds. So we headed over and got a really good look at this easy-going minke as it was always surfacing in the same spot which makes it easy to keep track of it and take pictures. However, it seemed like the dolphins wanted our attention as well, as suddenly a large dispersed group of around 20 animals was racing towards us and swimming next to and underneath out boat. So we spent some time with the feeding minke and the curious white-beaked dolphins, before we headed further offshore, where we got to see another minke whale before we started our way back to the harbour. But even as we slowly made our way back we spotted another group of 10-15 white-beaked dolphins and three more minke whales feeding together with small flocks of different sea bird species. 

- Hanna Michel

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, Atlantic puffins, arctic skuas, lesser black-backed gulls, and common guillemots.