Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Tour at 20:30

Report from Hafsúlan: An engaging orange landscape welcomed us when we left Reykjavik at the sunset, it was hard to not feel enthusiast while sailing ! We quickly came across a minke whale, that seemed very shy at the beginning. It was taking long deep dives and surfacing far away from us. When we decided to leave it alone, this picky minke finally was finally in mood to show itself. While following this individual we got surrounded by other minke whales. It was as confusing as it was delightful, it was difficult to chose, to pick a side where to look at and sometimes we had to move a lot to be able to see all of them. After staying for a while with them, we took the decisions to look further offshore to find other species. We made a long trip which was made pleasant by the midnight and the presence of lively and funny passengers. In our quest we could only take a glance at a pod of 3 - 4 white-beaked dolphins, but they were very elusive. They only surfaced 4 times before completely vanishing. Maybe those cetaceans were traveling with a calf, protecting from any dangers. We eventually had to resolve ourselves to go back home, time was running out. So we headed back toward Reykjavik, with our musician entertaining our guest with sweet music and hilarious jokes. But when we arrived not very far from the harbour, a last minke whale made us the pleasure to appear and to come very close to the boat ! If it was quite disappointing to not have been able to see well the dolphins, this friendly minke eased our sorrow by greeting us before the end of our trip. Once again, the midnight tour was proven to be magical.

- Guillaume Calcagni

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The bay was absolutely beautiful when we sailed out. It didn't take us long to spot the first cetacean of the tour, a minke whale few hundred meters away but we decided to keep on going because we had heard news of very active dolphins further out. We were not disappointed when we found a pod of 5-6 white beaked dolphins because they were indeed very active, leaping, breaching, rolling, tail slapping and always kept close to the surface. First we were not sure what was happening but after around ten minuets watching the animals we realized they were mating. Few times they swam really close to our boat and at one of those moments we could see the genitals of one of the male dolphins. Seeing the dolphins while mating made the tour really amazing, this is defiantly not something we see often on our tours. We also got to see 3 minke whales within 100 meters and 2-3 minkes further away. While watching one of the minke whales we also spotted 3-4 harbour porpoises that swam on high speed past our boat. 

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 14:00

Report from Eldey: With the weather still being amazing as we steamed out in to Faxaflói bay and with the earlier tour being awesome our hopes were high. Luckily that hope was deserved as we soon spotted two minke whales. It was then joined by a third individual called Humpie. The minkes were really relaxed so when saw a pod of white beaked dolphins we left them knowing we´d find them again. The dolphins were only somewhat playful and went under the boat a few times . But they were closed enough that everyone could see their unique scars and cuts on their fin. After about twenty minutes with them we rejoined the minke whales. The passengers in the front of the boat were fantastic at spotting and were quick to point out the whales. We then steamed out a bit hoping to see some larger whales but we were unlucky there, however we had the minke whales with us the entire time so a great tour. More awesome weather and great sightings!

-Tommy Torrades 

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: The sea conditions and the weather stayed fairly constant today, so we could still sail out in a perfectly calm sea this afternoon. And like this morning, we didn't have to sail out very far to spot cetaceans. First, we spotted two minke whales traveling together very close to each other. This is very uncommon since minke whales are known to be solitary animals. But these two stayed together and we could watch them surfacing synchronized. As we moved on, we kept spotting minke whales all around us in some distance and some of them rather close to us. It was the tour of the minke whales, we even came across a second pair of minke whales that seemed to be staying together. After all the minkes, we tried to also find some white-beaked dolphins and found two pods of 4-5 animals each. However, they kept some distance to us and changed their directions frequently which made it hard to follow. So we decided to leave them alone and turned slowly back to the harbour. Even though the dolphins were a little shy, the minke whales made this tour truly special! 

- Hanna Michel

Tour at 10:00

Report from Eldey: The sun was shining and the sky was devoid of clouds as we made our way out on to the bay. We were only about 15 minutes out before we spotted our first of three minke whales. We were able to stay close to it as it surfaced. After about 15minutes we decided to move on to try and spot a pod of white beaked dolphins. They were difficult to spot but we managed to track them down and we were extremely lucky to find three females with three calves! The calves were being very playful and it seemed like the females had trouble keeping track of them. We enjoyed their company before eventually tearing ourselves away from them to follow another minke. This minke was considerate and spent a long time near the surface showing of its back and dorsal fin. After being sunburned we made our way back to the harbour. Awesome weather and great trip!

-Tommy Torrades

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: This day started with perfect whale watching conditions - sun shine and smooth sea conditions - and so we left Reykjavík with a fully booked boat. It took not even 30 m to find our first minke whale. It wasn't shy at all but kept surfacing around us and gave us some really nice looks. We could stay a while before we decided to move on; and after only a few minutes we spotted a pod of 6 white-beaked dolphins traveling at high speed. We could watch them for a while but they were difficult to follow. So we moved on to the minke whale that we spotted a little further away and got some amazing looks at is when it surfaced right next to our boat. When we heard about another pod of white-beaked dolphins from another boat, we tried to get a better look at the dolphins and finally got to see a group of 6 white-beaked dolphins including 3 tiny baby dolphins surfacing closely besides their mothers. I've never seen so small white-beaked dolphins, they were adorable to watch. On our way back to the harbour, we also came across another minke whale. 

- Hanna Michel

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, arctic skuas, great skua, red-necked phalarope, lesser black-backed gulls, atlantic puffins and common guillemots.