Wednesday, 30 June 2010

Tour at 20:30

This evening we had a very cosy trip, all enjoying a hot drink of some sort.  Our trip began at Akurey, one of the puffin colonies.  Since it was high tide, we were able to get very close to them.  After this we headed out in Faxaflói Bay first spotting a couple of Minke whales who were obviously feeding, one even lunging at the surface.  Then off in the distance spotted a pod of white beaked dolphins and upon closer inspection it was a pod of approximately 30 - 40 very spread out, but also very playful.  And to finish the trip we spotted another Minke whale on our way back into port.  The weather was fantastic, very little wind and a glassy sea.

 

Tour at 17:00

We headed straight out into Faxaflói Bay once again and it didn´t take us long before we came across an area where there were many Minke Whales. They were surfacing in all directions at first quite far away but we were able to get quite close. They sometimes caused a lot of splashes from surface feeding but it was only the splashes we saw and not the whale.  We turned off our engines and listened to nature. The Arctic Terns were being quite noisy and it was easy to spot the whales as we could hear their blows from quite a distance away. Then we saw a Minke very close to the coast so we thought we would go and say hello. We only stayed with that one for a little time before heading further out to see if can spot other species of cetaceans. On the way we saw two Harbour Porpoises but very briefly and then in the distance, yes...we found some White-beaked Dolphins. It was a small pod and they really weren´t in the whale watching mood and the puffins were waiting for us. So we were off. There were thousands of Puffins on Akurey which ended the tour perfectly. Great day.

 

Tour at 13:00

The weather had been really nice all day and it continued like that this after noon; calm sea and no wind. We started at the Puffin island Akurey and there were a lot of Puffins, many thousands.  Then we headed out to Faxaflói bay searching for whales. After sailing for only 10 minutes we spotted the first Minke Whale.  Actually, in this area were many whales surfacing everywhere, and at one point it was very difficult to decide where to look.  Some of them came quite close, others were surfacing further away. Then a call from Hafsúlan, our sister ship, they found White-beaked dolphins. Two groups of them. We stayed with them for some time.  Very nice dolphins. So, lots of dolphins and whales in the bay today and very close to shore.

 

Tour at 09:00

Before we headed into Faxaflói bay this morning we stopped at the Puffin island Akurey. There were many Puffins flying above and around the island. We also saw many Arctic Terns at the island and they were making a lot of noise. After this visit we headed out and really quickly spotted a Minke Whale. It surfaced 3 times and when it looked like it was going for a deeper dive but it was just kidding us. He came up again really quickly. We went on and tried to find another Minke Whale it took us some time but we spotted some Whales around the boat. They were difficult and always went away from us. But when suddenly we spotted White beaked Dolphins in front of the boat. We stayed with them, there were at least 4 animals and they surfaced really slowly for us. So happy to see them again! We also came along a group of Gannets, about 15 Gannets and some of them were diving for fish. It was a great show! We came along to our sister vessel Elding they were spotting a Minke Whale and we got a good look at it when it surfaced in front of us. When it went for a deeper dive we went on and found another Minke Whale but it soon took a deeper dive and we had to go back to the harbour. Nice tour :)