Friday, 17 May 2019

The day started absolutely amazing with sunshine, no wind at all and the flattest sea I have seen in a while. On our way out of Akureyri we saw lots of harbour porpoises popping up here and there and hunting fish. We often overlook these small animals on days with rougher sea conditions but today we could even see and follow porpoises from the distance! The next cetacean we saw was a minke whale that surfaced a few times in front of us while it was traveling towards the harbour of Akureyri. After leaving it we soon saw the big blows of two humpback whales in the distance and made our way towards them. These two were feeding together and by looking at their flukes we could tell that it is two “new” humpback whales that have not been given a name yet because we have not encountered them in the past. We spent a good amount of time with them before heading back home. In the afternoon, the wind had picked up quite a bit and made the way out much colder than in the morning. We came across one humpback whale again - one of those two we saw on the morning tour and it was still in the same area. There were a lot of birds around as well and in between we saw a few harbour porpoises as well. There was no sign of the second humpback whale but we did see a few big blows in the distance of another humpback whale that might be the second animal from the morning tour. Overall two very different but nice tours!

Classic departures today: 90:00, 13:00 RIB departures: 10:00

Text and photos by Hanna Michel