Wednesday, 10 February 2016

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out from Reykjavik Harbour today.The forecast predicts wind from the east and we can experience some swells.

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan and Elding: Due to a high number of passengers we went out with two boats on todays whale watching tour. The weather was just incredible today with little to no wind and a clear sky with sunshine. The air was cold however so we kept warm wearing the red overalls that we have onboard on all of our vessels. Hafsúlan was the boat to first locate any wildlife. A pod of 8-10 white-beaked dolphins, one individual is one we know very well called Sophie, a dolphin we see often during the winter season.  were slowly milling around in one area. We could turn off the engine and just listen to the blows (exhale) and view the backs of the dolphins coming up out of the water, absolutely amazing almost like summer! Elding soon joined Hafsúlan with the dolphins while Hafsúlan continued further out scouting the bay. It were thousands of birds out in the bay today, seagulls and fulmars mainly. Whilst Hafsúlan ventured further offshore Elding found two other pods of white-beaked dolphins, one pod had two calves with them, so cute to see playing around the boat. Occasionally there were also dolphins seen breaching in the distance. It was great, all in all Elding must have seen over 20 dolphins in there multiple pods. It felt good and increased our hopes of finding something bigger. Both boats searched the bay and the next sign of wildlife was the same pod of dolphins as in the beginning of the tour. Now the dolphins were feeding and more active. We could stay a while and left with many good pictures and memories of these dolphins. A wonderful day out whale watching!

- Marcus and Megan 

Bird species seen on todays tour include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, greater black-backed gull, glaucous gull, Iceland gull, black-headed gull, kittiwake, common gull, herring gull, common guillemot, razorbill, black guillemot, shag, long-tailed duck and eider duck.