WEDNESDAY, 17 JULY 2019

✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE|  09:00

Report from Eldey: Great visibility, clear skies, bright sun and calm waters prevailed through the course of our tour. Apart from pleasant, this ride was quite rewarding as well. It took us about 1 hour to reach a good area with a few big flocks of feeding birds, indicating the abundance of prey. And that was simply the start of a proper “whale parade”. By the end of our journey was had seen at least 7 minke whales. All of them happened to be foraging, but were moving quite comfortably around us, allowing close up encounters for satisfactory periods of time. Another great tour with Elding!

- Inês Cunha

✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE|  10:00

Report from Hafsulan: Against all odds, we got the sun to break through the clouds, which allowed us to not just stay dry for the whole tour, but also to catch some tan. It took us little more than an hour to catch up with the other whale watching boats in an area, where whales have been spotted earlier. And we were not to wait for too long until we encountered our first of at least 5 minke whales. That first one was actually accompanied with 2 more in close proximity to the boat. It surfaced mostly only once before going for a deeper dive, which made it a little hard for us to predict where it would surface next. But one thing was for sure, that all minke whales were busy feeding with big sea bird flocks all around us. So we also saw more minke whales in all directions in the further distance and even one shy harbour porpoise surfacing twice in the sun glare. We did spot two more minke whales, which were easier to follow, with one of the animals surfacing multiple times, making it much easier to follow. And with the animals coming up super close to the boat twice as well, they just made our day. I am looking forward to what the next tour may bring.

-Christina Winkler

✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE|  13:00

Report from Eldey: The weather was sunny and as hot as it can be in Iceland this afternoon: This tour was looking bright, and begun really well. We were admiring the northern gannet, a majetic a big seabird, when it saw a fish with its sharp eyes and plunge-dive to catch it. Really impressive. We went at the same area looking for the whales. Helped in our search by flocks of birds, we fastly found our first minke whale. Not shy at all, the cetacean was surfacing really close of the boat. We stayed a while with this individual before to find successively 4 other minke whales! A light rain welcomed us near Reykjavik, just the necessary drops to refresh us!

-Miquel Pons

✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE|  14:00

Report fron Hafsulan: We headed out the harbour with a great visibility and the sun shinning.  Before we arrived to our spotting area we saw a lot of activity on the surface, at least three flocks of birds were in front of us so we decided to go there. Really optimistic we found a minke whale just in front of us, it came up to the surface two times so we decided to stay longer in the area, it was an spectacular scene seeing the northern gunnet "plunge diving" or the artic skua trying to steal the food from another animals, also we saw a lot of manx seawater and the atlantic puffin. Suddenly one minke whale showed up next to our boat three times and our passenger got the opportunity to take good pictures. In our way back we saw how it was rainning in Reykjavik but not where we were so we enjoyed an beautiful saling back.

-Jose Manuel Marco

✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE|  17:00

Report from Eldey: Unfortunately it was not possible see any whales or dolphins during this tour. As usual we visited the areas where we most frequently find them and cross the spots where they were recently observed in previous tours. The crew scanning the seas intensively, but as wild animals, whales and dolphins are absolutely unpredictable and it is impossible to determine exactly where they are. Cetaceans can also be quite conspicuous. Just like us they have different moods, and sometimes do not want to be found. In a way we only get to see the animals if they allow us to see them. Nevertheless, we provided all our passengers the possibility to come back again on another tour with us for free by delivering complementary tickets! Hope to see them all again soon!

. Inês Cunha

✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE|  20:30

Report from Elding: The sea conditions were quite good and the cold wind from the North wasn't as harsh as it can be. Even though we roamed all over the bay and at one time spotted a group of white-beaked dolphins, we returned to the harbour not richer for a wildlife sighting of the magnitude we expected. The dolphins were elusive and the rest of the mammalian zoon managed to successfully avoid us. For this reason we gave out complimentary tickets to our guests to try their luck again. We however did enjoy the bird life and spectacular lighting created by the evening sun.

-Lucas Heinrich

Bird species identified today: atlantic puffin, arctic tern, northern fulmar, northern gannet, common guillemot, black-legged kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull, arctic skua, manx shearwater, eider duck.