Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: Passengers had it rough on this trip ! Even if the tour began quietly, sea conditions got worse when we were in the main whale watching area. Our nerves were tested in quite shaky conditions and, even if we had to count some casualties, most of passengers passed brilliantly. We were brave and we were patient, so it is only fair that we eventually sighted two white-beaked dolphins. Those individuals were curious enough to come to race the boat, at the front. We could see them surface several times, and have a look at their splendid body. When the dolphins started to calm down, we heard aboutother species, so we began to travel again to encounter the gentle giants. We ended up by spotting the blow of a humpback whale, and we could successfully get close to it. It surfaced several times close to the front of the boat before getting more elusive. We were running late on the schedule so we decided to sail back toward Reykjavik, but this whale decided to not let us go without a humble farewell gift: it began to breach ! The jumps were really impressive, this humpback took almost 100 % of its body out of the water and its fluke ended up in the air, upside down. This whale was very agile ! It processed times 3 before calming down. We even spotted a second humpback whale in the distance. We were shaken pretty bad, and we came home late, but it was worth the sight !
- Guillaume Calcagni
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: This afternoon conditions were much the same as this morning as we sailed out onto Faxa bay. Our captain decided on a strategy of going along the coast for a smoother ride and then going to where we had the humpback earlier on with the wind at our backs. Long story short it worked out beautifully and we found our friend the entangled humpback whale again after a bit more than an hours cruise. This individual was still very calm and swam around us for a while, coming close to us and showing its fluke. Again a fantastic experience and hopefully an effort can be mounted soon to cut the net loose.
-Ívar Elí
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: The rough sea continued into this afternoons voyage but it is nothing we haven´t handled in the past here, nothing stops us from finding those whales! And although it took a while of searching, around an hour, we eventually found a humpback whale! This was the same individual as the morning tour saw so we expected another good show. The whale was traveling around the area, often swimming close to us and underneath the boat and of course the whale was lifting its tail high into the air with every dive. We got to spend a long time with this whale, almost an hour before heading back to the city after a nice time with this humpback
- Jack Ball
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: This morning conditions were quite windy so we decided to go begin by going north along the coast line for cover. After hugging the coast we headed south to where our sister vessel had encountered a whale. It took us a while to cruise over but soon we caught sight of a humpback whale! This individual was one known to us, being the one unfortunately entangled in a fishing net. Despite that this individual was very calm and swam very close to us and rising slowly out of the water so we could almost see the whole animal. A massive sight to behold! We spent most of our time with this calm humpback and headed back to Reykjavik very happy.
-Ívar Elí
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: On this windy day we sailed out from Reykjavík in to Faxaflói. The sea was quite rough today making our journey rather bumpy but on our new boat Eldey it was still comfortable. After about 40 min we encountered a small pod of 3-5 white-beaked dolphins. Even though they are usually a lot of fun, they obviously didn't like to stay around our boat today and quickly disappeared. However, just a few minutes later we encountered one or two minke whales. It was difficult to day whether it was the same individual we saw or two different animals but we saw them surfacing a few times within 100 m from us. While we were slowly moving on we spotted the large blow of a humpback whale! We approached this animal and managed to spend quite some time with it just traveling slowly next to us. This individual was the humpback that is unfortunately still entangled in a fishing net but hopefully the next attempt of the coast guard to free it will be more successful.
- Hanna Michel
Birds seen on todays tour: Kittiwake, Atlantic puffin, Arctic tern, Arctic skua, great skua, eider duck, black-backed gull, northern gannets, northern fulmars.