Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: we had been out for a bit when we noticed that a pod of harbor porpoises was spread around us, usually 1-3 here and there. These ones did not vanish but they seemed a bit too busy to show us attention so on we went. Then the captain spotted the back of a minke whale surfacing close to a nearby fishing boat and so we went there, not only to watch the whale but also to watch the boat pulling in the net, which is always interesting to see along with the feeding frenzy of seabirds that follows. Like yesterday, this turned out to be a small minke and, while not quite as curious as the one yesterday, it did seem in a bit of playful mood for it did surface in different places close to us, on one occasion as if it had taken a turn as swimming away from us and decided to come closer as the next time we saw it, it was right behind us. At times it felt like the game of cat and mouse but none of the sneaky bit, only delight. After a while we left it with another whale-watching boat and went over to another nearby minke before heading back home but before we did, we could not resist checking out our third sighting, this time in the shape of two minkes travelling together. So all in all at least 4 minkes and a whole lot of porpoises on this delightful afternoon.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 09:00

The sun was shining, the air had the winter chill, everyone on board wrapped up warm for our morning whale watching. we sailed to our usual successful areas in the bay and first came across a few flocks of feeding seabirds. Then a couple of white-beaked dolphins come out of no where and started playing under and around the boat. For about 10-15 minutes the 2 dolphins were with us but they soon got bored and travelled further offshore. Then we saw 2-3 harbour porpoises and a minke whale surfacing once, about 500m away we tried to get a bit closer and waited a long time for the whale to shows itself again but no luck there. We went back to where we saw the flocks of birds at the beginning and found a pod of 5-7 harbour porpoises feeding, encircling the fish into a tighter ball whilst birds dive bombed from above. Probably one of the longest encounters we have ever had from the porpoises and it was so interesting watching how they feed. After a long while we travelled more to the north west and came across another pod of 3-5 white-beaked dolphins, they were not as interactive as the first lot but still nice nonetheless. We travelled back to the harbour with smiles on our faces.

- Megan Whittaker

Birds seen on today's tour include: Northern gannets, kittiwakes, black-backed gulls, glaucous gulls, iceland gulls, cormorants, shags, eider ducks and common guillemots.