Wednesday, 24 june 2015

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: We left Reykjavik under a quite covered sky but we were heading toward rays of light piercing through the clouds, a landscape offering us a splendid contrast between a dark sea and clear sky colors. We had to go out far away to find species, and on our way the clouds slowly made space to the sunset, inputting orange colors in the sky and a shiny sun glare on the sea. Under this magical scenery we finally met a very friendly pod of white-beaked dolphins. There was about 6 individuals that traveled slowly, sometimes surfacing together. The dolphins seemed quite curious about us, coming very close, less than 10 meters from the boat, going away and then coming back several times. We could stay a very long time with those relaxed dolphins. They even jumped and displayed some leaps in front of us ! After this special moment, we went looking for other species. We eventually ran out of time so we started to head back to Reykjavik and gave the signal to our musician to start his show. But quickly we heard news of some whales, so we made an U turn to come back to the area where we were and found two minke whales. We ended up being able to take few close look at them while enjoying some live acoustic covers of classical rock tubes (Stairway to Heaven, Nothing Else Matters... Thanks Bjarni !). We were late so we had to hurry to get back on land, and we could not even stop when we met more minke whales on our way back, with the magnificent midnight sun in our back. Still, we had a great time, and the amazing performance of our guitarist-singer was the icing on the cake.

- Guillaume Calcagni

Tour at 17:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We went out from Reykjavík in good conditions, the wind had picked up a bit but we still had a beautiful view over the surrounding from Faxaflói. We wanted to go out and trying spotting the leaping dolphins again that we saw earlier but we hadn't gotten far out to the bay when some passengers spotted a minke whale in the distance. We had a look for them and eventually we found this individual coming close to the boat, clearly not bothered by our presence. It turned out that this was peanut, the one that we saw also on our 13 o'clock tour. We were really happy to see him again but after all the passengers had seen him we wanted to get a little bit further out. After some time of scanning we found couple of minke whales but they weren't surfacing frequently so it was pretty hard to get a good look at them. There were at least 3 around us that popped up from time to time but eventually we headed to another direction and tried to find some other animals. We found a big flock of gannets and lesser black-backed gulls feeding on the surfaced and we got curious. The gannets were amazing, about 20-30 gannets were plunging in the water and juveniles as well. We stopped there for a while and waited for something more to happen. After few minutes minkes came up, at least two and one of them came really close to the boat. We wanted to stay longer but we were running out of time so we had to leave this area of rich wildlife. This tour was great, we got to see some minke whales and a lot of birdlife.

-Katrín Björnsdóttir

Tour at 14:00 

Report from Elding:  On our way further out on the bay a passenger spotted jumping dolphins far away from the boat. When we got closer they came towards us and swam around the boat! First we only noticed a pod with 6 white beaked dolphins but later found out they were way more, another pod with 5-6 also came close and we could also see dolphins in further distance! After a wonderful time with the dolphins we went to see the minke whale that Hafsúlan had been following. As soon as we arrived Hafsúlan left to minimize our disturbance to the whale. This minke whale was a bit elusive so we kept on going and it didn't take us long to find the second minke whale, it was amazing to see it feeding under a flock of northern gannets. While we watched that minke whale we spotted breaching dolphins closer to Reykjavik, we knew our tour was soon coming to an end so we decided to go a bit earlier towards land and try to get closer to the dolphins on the way. When we got closer to them it surprised us how many they were, at least 20-25 white beaked dolphins! It was incredible to see these beautiful animals travel so many together and just to end the tour even better we spotted 2 other minke whales further in distance!

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We went out in beautiful weather with the sun reflecting on the sea surface. We spotted leaping white-beaked dolphins early on. First we saw one pod, 4-6 individuals and after few minutes another one popped up on the other side of the boat. They were showing off to the passengers and everybody got a really good look at those fun animals. They were leaping and coming closer to the boat for everyone to see. Just a few seconds after we spotted the dolphins we spotted a minke whale in ca. 150 meter distance. We stayed with the dolphins for a while and then went on to find some minkes. It didn't take us long until we spotted some minke whales. At one point we had three minke whales within a 300 meter distance around the boat. Out of the blue this one minke whale came up just few meters from the boat and swam all around it so everybody could get a close look at him. This was in fact peanut our great friend and we were delighted to see him again. This tour was just amazing and hopefully everybody went on land happy. 

-Katrín Björnsdóttir

Tour at 10:00 

Report from Elding: We sailed out on the bay in absolutely perfect conditions for whale watching, nearly no wind, flat sea and cloudy sky. We heard news from our whale watching boat that went out before us that they had found minke whales further out on the bay. We decided to head to them and when we arrived Hafsúlan had already left the area. It didn't take us long until we found a minke whale and after getting a good picture of it we recognized as one of our most sighted minke whales that we call Tap. we were really lucky with this minke whale, it was clearly feeding and surfaced very often in the same area. We got to see Tap lunge feeding and rolling a couple of times! we noticed at least one other minke whale to so far away from us but that one didn't seem to come as frequently up to the surface. after amazing show with tab we kept on going further our and soon found 10-12 white beaked dolphins. the dolphins breached and leaped few times close to the boat and swam few times under the boat so close to the surface that we could easily follow there movement under water! just an amazing tour!

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: We went out from Reykjavík this morning in sunshine and very good sea conditions, perfect for whale watching. It took a while until we found cetaceans on this tour, but as soon as we had spotted one minke whale, we soon saw at least 4 minke whales around our boat. Two were a little further away, a few hundred meters, but the other two came within 100 m and a few times they surfaced right next to us. We were just floating while watching the minke whales feeding. After everyone had the chance of taking nice pictures, we decided to move on and search for something else. So we did a circle in Faxaflói, however, we did not spot any other cetacean species, but another minke whale. As we started to head back to the harbour, we came across the area with several minke whales again and got a final good look at one of them surfacing in front of us. 

- Hanna Michel

Bird species seen on today's tour include: arctic terns, puffins, common guillemots, black-backed seagulls, northern fulmars, northern gannets, arctic skuas, eider ducks, kittiwakes.