A so-so day ending with a totally brilliant evening tour!
It was a somewhat slow day on the water today, even if it has been a while since we have enjoyed such good weather. The morning saw one Humpback Whale and at least two Minke Whales (a small one and a larger one) and then the afternoon saw one Humpback Whale. But the best tour of the day was the evening tour, even if evening tours are normally smallest in terms of passengers. What was so good? Well, how about a group of 20+ White-beaked Dolphins jetting around for a start? We had them for a while and enjoyed them interacting with the boat in between watching them probably chasing after some fish. Then we went further to the west and came across at least 2-3 Minke Whales feeding amidst a number of seabirds and the Arctic Skuas which, being skuas, attacked the Kittiwakes, sometimes many on one, trying to snatch their fishes. Sad to see but this is nature and nothing we could do about it. With two species recorded, we thought it could not get better but it did. As the evening fog was about to creep over, a blow on the way back to shore caught my attention all of a sudden. It was one of a Humpback Whale and even if we really should have continued towards Húsavík as we had run out of time, it was too tempting to try to have a look at it. We saw the blow twice more and thought we were about to loose the animal and might as well continue our homeward journey as the fog was getting closer and closer. Then the humpback whale appeared, as if there had been a group spiritual wish sent towards him or her, only about 50 meters away on the right side and it stayed still, blowing a few times before saying goodbye to us with the handsome fluke. There was so much joy onboard that it is impossible to describe and it was a content group that sailed back afterwards.
Baldur Thorvaldsson (Guide on Garðar 26/7/2015)
