Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Tour at 13:00

The wind picked up slightly but it was still very sunny. We headed offshore onboard Elding and saw a couple of pods of Harbour Porpoises on our way offshore. It seemed to take ages to find anything except birds in Faxaflói on this tour. But when our hopes were starting to disappear we saw a large pod of White-beaked Dolphins (8-12 individuals). These were great, leaping and breaching out of the water. We watched these for a while and on occasion they came really close to the boat and did a bit of wave surfing. No luck with the larger Minke Whales for this tour but the amount of birds we saw was unbelievable, Gulls, Arctic Terns, Arctic  Skuas, Puffins, Guillemots, Fulmars and many Kittiwakes. Let’s see what tomorrow will bring us.

 

Tour at 9:00

The sun was out and it was beautiful. The sea wasn´t as calm as the last couple of days but it was still pretty calm. We started the tour by sailing past one of the small Puffin Islands of the coast of Reykjavik. There were so many Puffins flying about. We headed offshore and saw a couple of big flocks of seabirds (Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Gulls, Guillemots, Arctic Terns, Skuas and Puffins), we were hoping to see a Minke in this area but instead we came across a small pod of Harbour Porpoises. We saw quite a few pods of Harbour Porpoises on this tour and very close to the boat. It took us a while to find a Minke Whale but we never gave up and eventually one was spotted. We stayed with this one for a while as there didn´t seem to be many others in Faxaflói today but the Minke didn´t seem to mind as it surfaced many times giving the passengers a great look. Great to see so many birds in Faxaflói.