Tour at 20:30
Report from Hafsúlan: We avoided the worst of the wind by hugging near the coastline but still we had some powerful winds. A few daredevil passengers were near the front and braved the spray. I spotted a minke whale blow just of the coast of Akranes which we chased. It lured us closer with a few more blows until we lost track of it. After spending a few minutes we had an easy sail in to the middle of the bay. Suddenly I spotted a large blow in the distance about 4km. It could only mean one thing, a humpback whale. We neared and everyone was soon treated to the humpbacks large blow. It stayed neared the surface most of the time only going for quick dives showing of its beautiful fluke. Soon we reached the maximum time but the captain let us have one more look. Of course this is when the humpback said goodbye by showing its fluke right beside the boat. Brillant view, then a rocky trip back to port listening to the fantastic Bjarni. Great evening tour with a spectacular sunset.
-Tommy Torrades
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: No tendency of weaker winds and the sea was still pretty rough. We sailed west for more than an hour before our first whale encounter. We found a small minke whale feeding around a large flock of arctic tern. The whale was very elusive and we got some short glimpse of the animal. We kept on going after a while and pushed forward into the wind. We found a really promising area with thousands of seabirds, mostly arctic terns. We also found 1-2 minke whales and after some time in the area we managed with some good views of the busy animals. We were out of time and turned for harbour. A windy tour with 2-3 minke whales.
- Marcus Bergström
Tour at 14:00
Report from Eldey: This tour was still a little rough and the wind even picked up during the tour but the sea conditions were still no problem for our new boat Eldey. After about one hour we came across a fun pod of white-beaked dolphins. It was a group of 5-6 individuals and they came close enough to our boat to watch them under the water surface as they were swimming right next to and underneath the bow. We spent some time with them and then decided to move on to look for a minke whale. However, these small whales were quite shy and obviously not in the right mood for whale watching today. At least, we managed to get a closer look at one minke whale in the end of the tour. Of course we would have liked to spend more time with this individual, but as we were running out of time we soon had to start heading back to the harbour.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsúlan: In the afternoon the weather was still better then the forecast predicted and so we were hopeful to spot many cetaceans. We traveled for a while, when out of nowhere a minke whale appeared only 100 meters away from the boat. Unfortunately we only saw it one more time before it went for another dive and did not reappear again. It didn´t take long until we found another individual. This marine mammals also seemed a bit elusive so we moved on, looking for other species like dolphins. And indeed, a short trip later we found two white- beaked dolphins. We tried to spot them as often as possible until we had to head back to the harbour. On the way another minke whale was spotted by a whale watching boat that just left the harbour. We stayed for a while, but the animal was nowhere to be found. In the end of our trip our passengers seemed to enjoy the afternoon sun on the way back to Reykjavik.
- Michaela Buchbauer
Tour at 10:00
Report from Eldey: We went out from Reykjavík today again, and it was still quite windy and a bit rough. However, it was still pretty comfortable and a nice sailing in Faxaflói. It took quite a while to spot cetaceans on this tour. After about 1.5 h we spotted the first white-beaked dolphins, it seemed like two individuals milling in this area. They were fairly sneaky, so we decided to move on to look for something else. A while later we spotted a minke whale, and it surfaced only about 100 m away from us. However, we didn't spot it again and moved on again. Luckily, on the way back to the harbour we came across another pod of white-beaked dolphins. It was a larger pod of 5-6 individuals that we could observe quite close to us and since they didn't move around a lot it was not too difficult to get some pictures. But after a while, we finally had to head back to the harbour.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: On this morning we left the harbour in search of cetaceans. Fortunately the weather was better then expected, which made us enjoy the ride even more. On our way west we spotted a minke whale in the distance and decided to travel to the sighting area. There we found out that this animal was a very small individual, a juvenile, around 5 meters in length. At the same moment we saw that there were at least two harbour porpoises on the other side of the boat. Our encounter with those animals was short but nice. We moved on to look for other animals and managed to spot two white- beaked dolphins, which barely left the boat, moving underneath it several times. While watching these dolphins we saw another minke whale in the distance, just before we had to head back to the harbour.
- Michaela Buchbauer
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, atlantic puffins, common guillemots, arctic skuas and lesser black-backed gulls.
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