A Dolphin Day With Some Minkes
30.Aug 2017
9:00
This Wednesday morning the bay of Faxaflói was calm with a little wave movement from west. Visibility was good and greater part of the sky was clear.
Shortly after our ship turned to northwest, heading for the feeding ground, a minke whale appeared. We followed it until it dived heading north.
As we entered the feeding ground two more minke whales came up to the surface. It was one full grown and a calf that showed themselves briefly.
Further west a pod of white beaked dolphins found us. They stayed close to the ship and gave us good exposure.
Tour Status : ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales, White beaked dolphins
10:00
The sun was shining over Reykjavík when we boarded the Lilja for this morning´s Whale Watching Express. There was a cold wind blowing from the west, so we could feel winter creeping up on us, even in August! We set sail from Reykjavík´s Old Harbor and headed out into the wild bay of Faxaflói, where anything can happen! The sea surface was a bit choppy this morning, so we were in for an adventure. We sailed out towards the feeding grounds until we got word from our other boat, the Andrea, about a sighting farther out. We continued on and there was a pod of white-beaked dolphins up ahead! There were already a few boats watching these animals, so we enjoyed them from a distance and waited until some of them left before we got closer, so we could reduce our disturbance on the animals. Once we got closer we got better looks at them. The pod split up into a few subgroups, a normal behavior for this species, and we followed 2 of them for a while. We got even better looks now, and many of them leapt out of the water again and again so we could see their flukes! We then headed off towards the northwest to check another part of the feeding grounds, where we encountered 2 minke whales traveling slowly towards the north! Baleen whales are quite solitary, so it is uncommon to see more than 1 together. We got nice looks at them and heard their breaths several times. We left them and headed back to the Old Harbor, enjoying the beautiful scenery all around the bay on the way back!
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales, White beaked dolphins
13:00
This afternoon the bay of Faxaflói stayed fairly calm, visibility was good and there was no breaking of the waves.
When we entered the feeding ground we found a fast moving pod of white beaked dolphins. We managed to stay fairly close and got good exposure from that pod.
Further north another pod of white beaked dolphins appeared briefly so we searched that location. Since did not show again we continued searching further northeast.
On the course to southeast a third pod of white beaked dolphins appeared and gave us some exposure.
Tour Status : ON
Sightings: YES – White beaked dolphins
14:00
When we took the Lilja out again for our afternoon Whale Watching Express tour, the sea was still a bit rough. We headed out from Reykjavík´s Old Harbor and sailed into Faxaflói Bay, in search of our cetacean friends. The bay was full of life today – we encountered around 5 pods of white-beaked dolphins! It´s always a lot of fun to see this active toothed whales out and about. Some of the pods were shy and kept on with their activities, but others were better and let us get really nice looks at them. Perhaps the most notable pod was a group of 8 dolphins traveling quickly out towards the west. We caught up to them, and realized that there were actually 4 mother and calf pairs! Some of the dolphin calves were very young, perhaps only a few weeks old. It can be really cute to see these young toothed whales surfacing right next to their mothers! We followed them for a while before we left them, and headed back towards the harbor. Throughout the tour we were always searching for something larger, but we did get some really great looks at the white-beaked dolphins this afternoon!
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – White beaked dolphins
17:00
The wind calmed down a bit before we sailed out on the Andrea for our evening Whale Watching tour. We sailed out from Reykjavík´s Old Harbor and headed out into the wild bay of Faxaflói towards the feeding grounds, with hope in our hearts. The sea surface was much smoother during this tour, but there was still some swell below the surface. Fortunately, the Andrea is nice and stable in the waves! Farther out in the bay, we had encounters with a few pods of white-beaked dolphins, which we could get some nice looks at. These toothed whales are the most active cetacean species we see in the bay, and they can be a lot of fun to watch! Not long after, we spotted a minke whale, a baleen whale much larger than the dolphins. We were on the way to get a closer look at it, but we slowed down and stopped when a pod of 4-6 harbor porpoises approached the boat and slowly surfaced mere meters away from our bow, letting us get amazing looks at them! We normally don´t see much of this tiny toothed whale species because they are so shy, but they were not shy at all today! We watched them for a few moments, then continued on to the minke whale. We got really nice looks at it until we headed off to the northwest, where we saw another pod of white-beaked dolphins. We watched them heading into the sunset, and they slowly came up not far from us before we left them and headed back to the Old Harbor. It was a beautiful evening tour with 3 cetacean species spotted!
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whale, White beaked dolphins, Harbour porpoises
