Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Tour at 20:30

Report from Elding: We headed out into the midnight sun with some gusts of winds and swell. I think this definitely added to the excitement on-board as we rolled over the waves in search of marine mammals. After about 40 minutes an eagle-eyed customer was the first to spot some splashes on the horizon. We watched this strange surge of waves and glimmer of a white belly... could it be a breaching minke whale?! As we got closer the animal breached and breached again - it was a minke whale! And breaching!! For such a rare sight there was definite excitement amongst the crew and passengers. This animal only put on this display for a short while but we were all extremely excited to see such a rare form of behaviour from this animal. After such a display we headed further out in search of another species and were greeted with a blow from a humpback whale about 2 km away. The glare from the sun made it difficult to spot this animal but as we waited for it to surface again it breached within 60 m of the boat with a huge crash of waves visible on the surface. We got to see this animal go for a deeper dive and display its magnificent tail fluke.  As we headed with our backs to the glorious sunset we enjoyed the dulcet tones of our onboard troubadour on what was a fantastic sightings of two species of whales (and breaching!!)  

- Darcy Philpott

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: The wind had picked up since the afternoon however following a day of good sightings we were in high spirits. After about 45 minutes of sailing we saw our first cetacean - a minke whale! It was quite hard to follow amongst the waves, not least because it was only surfacing once between travelling and changing direction underwater. However at one point it did pop up by chance 100 m to the right of the boat to the delight of passengers that were that side, and it was clear that´s as close as we were going to get. We headed further out and after 20 minutes we spotted some big splashes 2 km, even amongst the whitecaps. These turned out to be a playful pod of 6-8 white beaked dolphin, but then a humpback whale also came up with them to our surprise! As the dolphins had calmed down we decided to follow the humpback, which fluked beautifully the first dive and was going down for 3 minutes at a time. However after 10 minutes watching the whale´s behaviour changed, it began surfacing very quickly and giving a flick of the tail between shallow far dives. We had a 15 minute break from the dolphins but then they returned in fine form, with one comlpletely leaping and appeared to hover horizontally above the water for at least 5 leaps. Whilst watching this we kept a bit of a distance from the humpback in the case that it was avoiding interaction, and thought we had lost it as we didn´t spot it for 10 minutes, but then we saw the blow 600 m towards Reykjavik. As we approached it this time, it breached 3 times! What a fantastic sight for all passengers on board, just when we thought of heading home! A breezy but beautiful tour.

- Ophelie Humphrey

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: While weather was not bad, conditions on our 14:00 tour had worsened compared to this morning. Clouds were now present in the sky, wind had strengthened so it was a little bit shaking, but overall temperature was quite warm, which is always a victory here in Iceland ! We had to travel far away to find our first cetacean on this tour, it took over one hour of sailing before we spotted a humpback whale. It was moving at high pace, alternating between long deep dives and fast swimming. It was difficult to follow it so we had to be patient, but it successively displayed a breaching, a pectoral fin slapping and a tail-lob ! Those events were short, but spectacular nonetheless. We followed this humpback further away until we reached the point where we knew it would take time to get back to land, so we had to turn away. Immediately after leaving the whale, we had a short encounter with 2 white-beaked dolphins. They were also moving fast, as if all the cetaceans in the bay were in a hurry this afternoon, but one of them came on several occasions close to the boat and we could see it swimming along us underwater, which was a lovely sight. Unfortunately no more cetaceans to allow us longer sightings on the way back, but the sun was piercing through the clouds and there was plenty of seabirds in the bay, so some more landscape and wildlife materials to make this trip enjoyable.

- Guillaume Calcagni

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: The sun was shining and the sea state was pretty good for spotting cetaceans. After sailing for about 40 minutes we saw the first blow. It was a humpback whale. It was quite elusive, spending long periods under the water in between coming to the surface to breathe. It did not fluke and after seeing it a few times, the Captain and one of the researchers recognised it as an injured one. Somehow it had sustained injuries to its sides near the dorsal fin. They look as if something had cut in to the skin, such as rope perhaps from fishing gear. This was sad to see. We watched it for a little while then headed off to check out another blow we had seen. Soon after we saw a minke whale. It surfaced a few times but then disappeared. Not long after, some habour porpoises were swimming quite close to the boat but again, this was a brief sighting. We then found another humpback whale and just as we were about to head back to the harbour, it breached...and again. What a sight to see! It then treated us to several pectoral slaps on the surface of the water. But our time had run out and we had to leave. On the way back to the harbour we saw the injured humpback again. This time it slapped its flukes on the water and appeared to roll. We slowed down and watched it surface a couple of times close to the bow of the boat before finally heading back.

- Julia Benson

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: Sunny morning in Reykjavik and Faxaflói. The sun was heating us but the wind gave the colder point added to the perfect mix for today´s tour. The sail out was very enjoyable when we spotted the first humpback whale of the tour. The animal was coming up at the surface just once before to go for deeper dives, and it stayed for a while swimming so we decided to keep going and look for something else. Then, we arrived to the area where at least 3 humpback whales were hanging around, two of them were closer to each other, the other was a bit further in the distance feeding. We could enjoy how the animal was resting for a while and just moving very slow. It fluked several times showing us the beautiful pattern underneath. While we were waiting for the individual coming up again a minke whale just showed up in front of the boat, about 50 meters far away. During the sail back the wind picked up a little bit, but the sun was balancing the cold.

- Alejandro García

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: It was a beautiful morning and we were fully booked. We could enjoy the sunshine and the calm sea as we set course further out in the bay. Soon we came in contact with 1-2 minke whales that we could see surfacing sporadically around us. We didn't get the best views of them but today was one of these days when you actually could see the blow from the minke very clearly so that we could see on several occasions. Towards the north we found what we were looking for when a humpback whale surfaced infront of us and we could observe it going for deeper dives in a large area. At the same time a pod of 3-4 white-beaked dolphins showed up and we had a quick look. We ended by looking once more at the humpback whale and when we had left it it breached one time behind us in the distance. On the journey back we saw one more humpback and a pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises. Great morning out in Faxaflói. Over and out!

- Marcus Bergström 

Bird species seen on today's tours include: manx shearwater, northern gannet, arctic skua, atlantic puffin, northern fulmar, lesser black-backed gull, greater black-backed gull, herring gull, black-headed gull, red knot, common guillemot, kittiwake, arctic tern and eider duck.

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing out from the old harbor in Reykjavík. It is a very lovely day with calm seas and sunshine. I hope you will be able to join us to see these amazing giants in their natural habitat.