Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding : Beautiful seau conditions for this midnight tour ! We started at Puffin Island but there were not a lot of birds tonight. We continue our trip out in Faxafloi Bay sailing into the sun going down. The sea was flat calm and we had the chance to have a great look at a group of at least 7 Harbour Porpoises. We decided to go further out and try to find a bigger specie. Searching we found other Porpoises and that is were we spotted our first Minke Whale further in the distance. We followed this guy for a while and it was diving for a long time when we saw it surfacing a few hundred meters away. It was actually another Minke Whale !! We made our way back to the habour listenning some live music and watching the beautiful sunset !

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We started the tour at Akurey to see the Puffins close to Reykjavík. After that we headed out into the bay and searched a bit until we spotted the first pod of 3 Harbor Porpoises. They were illusive so we went on and found shortly after them a Minke Whale. And this was not only a Minke Whale this was THE Minke Whale of the day!!! We stayed a very long time with the Minke, while it was travelling not more than 5 meters away from the side of our vessel. It was great to watch and to listen to the blows!!! Amazing sighting just a perfect Minke! After we stayed for a long time with this individual we decided to search for another one and went on searching. We came into an area with 6 to 8 Harbor Porpoises and a second Minke Whale. This one was more difficult to spot but great to meet a second individual! This tour was a perfect end of the day!

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: We went in to Faxaflói bay in beautiful weather and calm sea. We didn't have to look for long because a passenger saw aHarbour Porpoise but it was very elusive so soon we were on our way again. By then our sister vessel Hafsúlan had already spotted a very nice feeding Minke Whale. We spent sometime with it and found out that there was another Minke Whale there feeding in the same area aswell! They were very busy feeding in the area and we even saw one of them lunge feeding! We didn't want to disturb them too much so we headed further out to the beautiful sunny Faxaflói bay. After little bit of looking we spotted another Minke Whale and we stayed with it until it was time to head back. We stopped at Akurey the puffin colony at the way back, it is always nice to see the puffins and we also saw some gulls as well as common eiders with their chicks.

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsulan: We left the older harbor in a brilliant weather. It was just great to sail out into the sunny and mirrored calm bay and it did not take us a long time until we spotted a Minke Whale in a distance. We went there, slowed down and tried to come closer to the area. Once we arrived we did not find only one Minke Whale, there were two of them travelling together surfacing many times around the boat! As one of them was very small and seemed to follow the bigger one, we are very sure it was a mother with a calve travelling side by side. Not that they were surfacing closer than 10 meter away from us, they were even lunge feeding next to our boat, so we could see the pink bellys of those baleen whales. WOW, incredible expirience in such a calm and silent bay. Once they started to get a bit more illusive we decided to leave them in peace. And again we found two more Minke Whales not far away, one of them lunge feeding, while the other one was next our boat. On the way back we stopped at Akurey before we came back in to the harbor after an amazing tour!

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsulan: This morning we stopped at first at the Island Akurey to watch the Puffins. It was great to see that there were again many of those cute and small birds all around the island. After that we headed out in to a calm bay an it took us a little bit to find the first sign of a whale. It was a Pod ofHarbour Porpoises, maybe 3 to 4 of them. They were surfacing only shortly, so we headed on and found soon Minke Whales out in the bay. We first stayed with two Minke Whales in one area, were we did spend most of the tour. They were busy feeding but surfaced many times around our boat. Once there were too many boats around them we decided to leave and to head into another area. We searched a bit to spot a third Minke Whale that we found far out in the bay. This one was more challenging than the two in the morning and stayed under the surface for a long time. As always there was the point we had to head back towards land but we came back into the harbor after a tour after we saw three Minke Whales and Harbour Porpoises.

Report from Elding: A beautiful morning to be out at see and whale watching. The sea was flat calm and the sun beaming on our faces. We were thrilled to see three species of cetacean on this tour including Minke Whales (2-3 scattered individuals), White beaked Dolphins (3-5 individuals) and Harbour Porpoises (2-3 animals). Unfortunately they were all quite difficult as they didn´t surface very often. Dolphins were only seein in the distance and Minkes too mainly but one Minke Whale gave us a brake and surfaced many times and quite close to the boat too which was really nice of it. We sometimes have tours like this were the animals are difficult but it is nature and thats the way we like it. We also visited puffin Island and saw thousands flying around and swimming on the waters surface, great to see them alll out and about.

Birds seen on todays tours include; Puffins, Gannets, Kittiwakes, Arctic Terns, Arctic Skuas, Fulmars, Black backed Gulls, Common Eider Ducks, one female Harlequin Duck, Common Guillemot, Seagulls.