Species seen today: Humpback Whales

Birds seen today: Great cormorant, purple sandpiper, arctic terns, arctic skua, northern gannet, black guillemot, common guillemot, atlantic puffin, northern fulmar, great and lesser black back gull, herring gull, brent goose, eider duck

10:00 - The sea conditions could not be more calm this morning. The ocean was flat like a lake. We had a cloudy sky but bright making the sea and sky mingle in grey white and silver shades. We went to see the puffins in Akurey and after a few minutes observing those adorable birds we left further out in the bay. It was a bit foggy but we actually encountered a lot of wildlife very easily. First we saw 3-4 small groups of harbour porpoises, 2-4 individuals per group. They were shy so we continued a bit further. We stoppped then to see a flock of birds that was quite active and after going still one more mile towards the north we found a humpback whale. The large animal was feeding going for fluke dives, smoothly showing us its tail. We looked at it a few times and continued in another area where there was 4 different humpback whales! In the fog we had sometimes to find them listening to there loud breath. It was magical. We got closer to see them go for a majestic dive. We were out of time but still manage to have a short stop during the way back to see a group of 6 white-beaked dolphins that seemed to be milling, swimming slowly and close to each other. We also spotted at least 4 more pods of harbour porpoises during the way back

Crew: Captain Daniel & Guide Miquel

14:00 - The wind had increased in strength ever so slightly but the beautiful sailing conditions remained. We journeyed to the area where the vast majority of the humpback whales were seen in our morning tour and we were happy to see the whales had not moved too far. The tall blows of three humpback whales stood out obviously in the calm of Faxafloi. The whales which were loosley grouped, feeding independently in a smiliar area meant that we had many options to choose from. We watched all three close up, on separate occasions. The whales were unbothered by our presence, with some choosing to head slowly towards our motionless vessel. On the last encounter, a whale showed its fluke from only 10 metres off our bow.

Crew: Captain Daniel & Guide Mike

Today we are running whale watching tours at 1000 & 1400, and puffin tours at 0900 and 1300.

For more information please come see us at Ægisgarður 5D,

call us on +354 497 0000 or email us at info@whalesafari.is