Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Even though we still got to enjoy the sun shining all over us on this tour, the sea conditions had become a little worse. So we made our bumpy and rocky way in to Faxaflói hoping to still find minke whales around in the same area as this morning. It took a while to get there and then we slowed down to have a closer look around us. It looked promising as we were surrounded by various sea bird species, for example feeding northern gannets that were plunge-diving into the water. Suddenly, 2-3 white-beaked dolphins popped up only about 50 meters in front of us. Unfortunately, we only got a very short look at them before they disappeared just as quickly as they had shown up! Since this short encounter should remain the only one for the rest of the tour, we offered our passengers complimentary tickets, so that they can come with us on another tour for free.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out from Reykjavík in absolutely beautiful weather, it really didn't feel like a September morning in the harbour but as soon as we sailed further out from the shielded harbour the sea conditions were pretty much the opposite. The waves were really high today and the wind was strong so it wasn't exactly easy for us to spot splashes or blows. We had to work really hard to find our first animal but after maybe about 1 1/2 hour we spotted a minke whale just right in front of the boat. This individual was moving pretty slowly and showed off really well for us. It surfaced again about 6 times and made pretty big blows that made it easier for us to spot it. However it was pretty hard to keep track of it because of it's unpredictable behavior so eventually we lost it and had to turn back to Reykjavík. This minke definitely saved the tour and some passengers even got some good photos of this individual which was really nice to see.
- Katrín Björnsdóttir
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannets, northern fulmars, kittiwakes, arctic terns, eider ducks, black-headed gull and greater black-backed gulls, Icelandic gulls, common guillemots.