Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Tour at 17:00 and 20:30

has unfortunately been cancelled today because of the unfavourable sea conditions and whale difficulty. Sorry for the inconvenience and if you require further information please come and see us at the office (open till 9pm), call us on +354 519 5000 or email us on elding@elding.is.

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: we sailed off to the same location off Akranes as on the morning tour. As we arrived there, we started looking for our docile-feeding friends from this morning but we could not find them amidst the white tops and neither could their blows be seen unfortunately. The bird activity had also died down a bit. A possible reason is that the wind that came from the north-east may have pushed the sandeel that the gannets and the Minke Whales were most likely feeding on away from shore and further out, but there we could not go because of the wind. As as result, we could not find any whales on this tour. All our passengers were offered a complimentary return ticket so that they can come back with us for free within the next two years.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 13:00

Report from Hafsúlan: Well what an afternoon. Very difficult with sneaky minkes. We even stayed out an extra hour to better our chances and we were very happy we did. We saw one and it was so much fun when we did. Having the passengers involved on our game of find the first minke, unfortunately for them though the guide won. Crew spotted the minke whale 6-7 times and we hoped the passengers got to see it also but it was very difficult. Of course we always do our best and want our passengers to see as much as possible but nature is nature and thats why it is so appealing, the unpredictablility and magic of it all when it chooses to appear and thrill us all.

- Megan Whittaker

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: we went out in rather strong north-eastern wind and the white tops on the water were all over, meaning that trying to locate whales by their splashes would be difficult. We sailed alongside land for shelter towards the town of Akranes and looked for whales all along. Off Akranes we noticed a lot of bird activity but it was almost restricted to the North Atlantic's largest seabird, the Northern Gannet. They flew over us while scanning the water to look for fish below them and so we knew that since the gannets were here, we were most likely in a good location. Our barperson Heiður spotted the first Minke Whale and soon we came to realise that there had to be 2-3 around for they were surfacing too far from each other to be the one and the same. On this tour we never saw them go down for long dives; they always went down for short dives and swam calmly on the surface. Given the bird activity, they had to be feeding. The hot air that comes from the blowhole on the back when the animal exhales also mixed well with the cold air outside, creating some aparent and easy to see blows. So all in all I would say that this was a very good tour in light of the sea conditions.

- Baldur Thorvaldsson

Tour at 09:00

Report from Hafsúlan: It was sunny and calm when we went out on the bay this morning but out on the bay the wind was very strong and sea conditions were not so good. It was quite difficult for us to find the cetaceans today it took us over 1 hour to spot the first one, a Minke Whale. We only saw it once when it came up just in front of the boat. We kapt on going until we spotted another Minke Whale and we were a little bit more lucky with that one because we could see it surfacing for fww times but still we lost it. We heard news from the other whale watching boat from Elding that was quite close to us that they had seen another Minke whale. We got closer to that animal and could easily watch it while it swam in a circle in that area.

- Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Birds seen on today's tours include: Northern gannets, puffins, fulmars, arctic terns, arctic skuas, lesser black-backed gulls and kittiwakes.