The blue whales are back!

After ten days of a bay without blue whales, they were spotted again today. This morning we had seen white beaked dolphins and a humpback whale but when captain Hrólfur and me went out at 12:00 we spotted a large blow around the middle of the bay which turned out to be a blue whale, the first one in approximately ten day. At first it was a bit hard to see the blue whale as it was travelling quite fast into the bay and always coming up far away from us but then it slowed down and we saw it right next to our boat. On that tour we also saw one humpback whale and a second blue whale on the way back to the harbour.

In the following tours both blue whales, humpback whales and white beaked dolphins were spotted so it was indeed a successful day.

 

Þórdís, guide.

 

00:30 – Report from the evening tour:

It was quite foggy and some drizzle when me and Hildur guide went out at 20:15. We were on Bjössi Sör and were the only boat going out this evening. We got news from schooner Haukur that was on the way in from the 17:00 o´clock tour that were some whales out there so we were quite optimistic even though the visability wasn´t promising at all.

After about one hour or so Hildur spotted the first spout… a huge blow from a Blue whale! We managed to follow the whale for a while and got it really close to the boat several times (up to 15-20 meters). Then we decided to try our luck a little bit further out and after about 10 minutes we spotted another Blue whale and one Humpback whale as well! What a sight: "Blue whale at one o´clock and a Humpback at 11" Hildur called out to our passengers:) The Humpback was obviously feeding and circling around. Once it surfaced all of a sudden right next to the boat which gave us a wonderful oportunity to see the whole whale right under the surface!

Then it was time for us to start heading home to Húsavík. On the way we ran into a small group of White beaked dolphins, about 4-5 of them and followed them for a while and just outside the harbour we saw 1 Harbour porpoise (or at least some saw it).

So, all in all, a very successful tour with four species spotted despite the fog and rain!

 

Þórunn, captain