Wednesday, 1 April 2015

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It was still rather windy on this tour too, we tried to gain as much shelter by the mountains to the north as possible but the sea conditions caused a few splashes as we sailed past Hvalfjörður. We searched for the dolphins that we saw on the morning tour but unfortunately they had moved on. We changed course to travel with the swell and wind  making the journey more pleasurable. A couple of passengers spotted a couple of harbour porpoises but they were on a mission and missed by most. No other cetaceans were encountered on this tour and so we offered our passengers complimentary tickets in the hope they will try again in the next two years.

- Megan Whittaker

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It was quite windy this morning, which made the journey bitterly cold. However, everyone made use of the overalls which kept everyone toasty warm and others stayed inside the warm saloon. It was only 15 minutes out of the harbour that the captain spotted a blow, we slowed down and a 13-14m humpback whale surfaced on our right side just 30 meters from us. We followed the humpback for a while, watching it travel slowly below the waters surface and popping now and again, It looked to be resting (a form of sleep for them) traveling slowly towards the south west. As we could see it clearly traveling below the surface we were able to approach it nicely and had it surfacing within 100m most the time and once about 5 meters from the boat. We left it in peace and headed towards Hvalfjörður (north) and came across a pair of white-beaked dolphins that we were able to follow for a little while in the strong winds. A very cold but beautiful morning in the bay. 

- Megan Whittaker

Birds seen on today´s tour includes: northern fulmars, iceland gulls, black-backed gulls, kittiwakes, eider ducks, razorbill, cormorants and shags.