Status: RUNNING
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsúlan: A chilled out tour to end the day. Wind picked up a little and you could feel it on the way offshore, on the way home it was much nicer as we sailed with the wind. After a good 40 minutes of sailing we found ourselves 3 minke whales, few hundred meters apart but with these calm seas can see them surfacing miles away. They seemed to be sluggish probably due to a good day of feeding, surfacing slowly and regualrly. We had some nice close encounters, minkes surfacing 10-15 meters from our boat which gave us great opportunity to photogaph these beautiful animals. Our next cetaceans were a very acrobatic pod of 6-8 white-beaked dolphins that were found by the big splashes they were making in the distance. We arrived and had a lovely 20 minute encounter, once other vessels came we left the area found another 3 minke whales before we headed back to port. A very abundant day in the bay.
- Megan Whittaker
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: Awesome conditions for spotting cetaceans, so we set sail into Faxafloí. The first species we encountered were white-beaked dolphins. Probably a pod of 8-10 individuals enjoying themselves, jumping around and showing off. What a beautiful encounter with this lovely creatures. After some time we decided to look for some more and encountered minke whales. Throughout the tour we saw probably 6 individuals, if not more. They are so fast and therefore it is sometimes difficult to keep up with who is who. Luckily there were several, so we all had very nice looks at them traveling and feeding in the bay!
- Sarah Kompatscher
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsulan: We entered the bay under almost ideal conditions: Quasi no wind blew, no swell that would shake us and the colour of the water was a tender light grey - due to the clouds above - which makes cetaceans visible from far. Soon after welcoming the passengers the first white-beaked dolphins, around 8-10 individuals, came along. Among them was at least one playful young to observe. They were traveling fast, thus we lost them out of sight and went on to find bigger aquatic mammals: minke whales! There it was, luckily, because there was no sign pointing to it. And then it was gone again. But yet, there were many more to witness. Not less than at least 3 more minke whales crossed our path today. One of them showed perfect textbook surfacing sequences. What a success for all of us!
-Valentin Witek
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: It was a great morning! On our way out, 10 min away from the harbour we had sighting of our first cetacean: a solitary harbour porpoise. And despite elusive nature of this small animals most of our passengers managed to see it. A little bit further in to the bay, but not much away, we saw a minke whale. It was big and relaxed individual so we could spent some time with it. When another boat approached we left to respect code of conduct and whale personal space. It was good move as few minutes later we found pod 5 white-beaked dolphins. They were very curious and approach our boat close, swimming on the side so we saw their eyes looking at us! Later on when we stopped to watch another two minke whales, another two pod of white beaked dolphins arrived. It seem like they had a happy reunion as they were jumping like crazy and when our time was over some of them was bow-ridding our boat on the way back. As a good ending in same location as at the beginning we saw 2-4 harbour porpoises.
- Ewa Malinowska
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsúlan: What an amazing tour! The weather was good, not windy. On our way out to the bay we got a good look at 5-7 harbour porpoises. They surfaced a few times for us so everyone could get a look at these small animals. We left the porpoises and sailed into a big pod of 30-40 white beaked dolphins. They were all around the boat, near and far. They were curious about us and came right up to the boat and were swimming under it. We also encountered 4 minke whales feeding with a big flock of birds flying above trying to get some of the fish. We left the minke whales and saw more dolphins. They were jumping out of the water and were very playful. Great way to end the tour!
-Kolbrún Þóra Sverrisdóttir
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, Atlantic puffin, razorbill, northern fulmar, arctic tern, common guillemot, eider duck, arctic skua, black legged kittiwake, lesser black backed gull, greater black backed gull & manx shearwater.
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik on a mild but not so sunny day. Sea conditions are good and lets hope that the sun will shine on us. Hope you are able to join us on our search for these magnificent animals in their natural environment.
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