Tuesday, 19 August 2008

Tour at 17:00

The wind had picked up a bit this evening, so it was more difficult for us to spot the whales. Luckily the whale blows were very visible and we sighted at least 4 minke whales. We also spotted a couple of very lively white-beaked dolphins in the distance, jumping and making big splashes. Unfortunately, when we arrived they were elusive and dissapeared quickly.

 

Tour at 13:00

Report from Elding: Another successful tour. We found lots and lots of Minke whales, as well as a group of white-beaked dolphins. There were 4 dolphins together and always surfacing side by side in a row. Really great to watch the dolphins for a while. On the way back to the harbour we found still more Minke whales, but the sea had become a little bit more rough than it was this morning.

Report from Hafsúlan: Soon after we went out we found an area with at least ten minke whales. We really enjoyed them a lot. They were all around the boat and fed. A few of them came up for the breathing very close to the boat. One of them was particularly big! After a good while we went on to find other animals, but weren´t lucky with that. And the dolphins which the boat Elding had found dissapeared when we arrived. On the way back we found two more minke whales which were surfacing again close to the boat. Even when we spent some time searching we had a nice and successful tour!

 

Tour at 9:00

Nice calm sea this morning. We began the trip by unexpectedly finding a huge group of white-beaked dolphins which we observed for a while. Really great to watch the dolphins playing out in the wild nature! We headed on a bit further where we found plenty of Minke whales and even saw some lunge feeding. We stopped the boat by a huge group of feeding birds: gulls, kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, skuas, and gannets. By the birds we could see the sand eels under the surface and we found 2 young Minke whales in this area, one which was really tiny, just the same size as a dolphin. These young Minke whales are often curious, and this one really approached the boat and was feeding all around us. A great surprise :)