Yesterday has been an extremely beautiful day. The sun was shining, temperatures raised and it was amazing to go out for whale watching in Skjálfandibay. Humpbacks, minkes and dolphins had been showing up on the tours.
Recently we have been seeing hundreds of feeding birds in the bay, often in huge flocks of many different species near the mountains. These birds have been providing a great indicator of food in the water, and have been helping us to find the feeding minke whales! The birds, including kittiwakes, skuas, fulmars, black-backed gulls, and puffins, have been busy feeding on schools of little fish which is also what the whales are here feeding on.
Besides Whale Watching also Sea Angling is a popular activity in Skjálfandibay. During summer time several visitors go out on our boat Athena for the "GG3 Sea Angling" to experience the fishing out at sea.
On today’s morning trip we headed south and short after we had left the harbour area we got to see a minke travelling in that part of the bay. After watching it for some time we decided to leave it behind to head closer to the beach where a humpback was obviously relaxing.
Today the ship of „Iceland Pro Cruises“ came to Flatey for the last time this season. About 170 passengers came for a visit onto the island out in Skjálfandibay. They couldn’t be luckier: sunshine, a blue sky, no wind at all and warm temperatures awaited them when stepping on land.
July continued as successful as the months before: In the beginning of the month we still got to see the blue whales. Some of them stayed throughout the first week of July. Also the hybrid showed up a couple of times, last time just about 10 days ago.
Today again several different whales visited our bay. In the morning we crossed the bay all the way to the mountains on the other side. There we found a minke, which came surprisingly close to our boat – for a short check-out! We left that whale some time after and only a two minutes boat ride away a group of dolphins surrounded us.
The past days have continued very successful: Several humpbacks and minkes have been showing up throughout the trips. Also dolphins appeared in huge groups: often boats got surrounded by these lovely and playful animals – one didn’t even know where at to look first! Many groups had either juveniles or even new-born calves with them, what made it again more exciting.
During the summer time days are long in Iceland. For many weeks darkness doesn’t occur at all and even in August dusk starts late only. Hence, we also offer evening departures – one on the RIBs and another on the traditional oak boats.
Today’s 12:00am departure on Faldur turned out to be one of the most memorable from this summer so far! We had been sailing, looked at some playful dolphins and a minke whale. The weather was excellent: sun and a calm sea.
