Puffin Tour and Exscursion Reykjavik, Iceland.

It is a cooler and cloudy morning with rainfall forecast for later this afternoon. We slept very well following the superb day and excellent tour of the golden Circle.

today we have breakfast , then JKen goes on a long walk before we prepare for one of the highlights of this holiday to this point. We are scheduled to undertake aq whaling boat tour to the islands to see the Puffins in their native environment.

Folllowing breakfast Ken decides to go for an extended walk. He departs the Hotel and walks along the chore pathway. He comes to the Sculpture (aluminium of the Whaling boat. Stops, takes several photos and then retraces his steps into the city centre.

The Skeleton of the Whaling vessel.
The following photos refelct the scene.

He walks back takes photos of several apartment complexes and then of the wonderful Concert hall.

Time to then prepare for our early afternoon adventure to see the Puffins. Jeanette is particulalrly excited as to this whole episode and excursion.

We then are dropped off at the Whaling Excursion base and we sign in and then await the process of changing into Red overalls(heavily padded) and prepared to march down to our boat. We take the opportunity to take photos of the surrounding pier and the various excursion companies.

The time arrives to wrestle and put on the heavy wet winter gear . This takes a significant effort as we try to get these padded waterproof overalls over our normal street clothes. The following photos depict Jeanette getting into her gear.

We are then arranged into a line and we march together toward the rubber inflated boat and we are then loaded and seated on the special seats and our driver takes us out and our guide, Emily , then discusses our approach to visit both islands and see the Puffins. We are unlikely to see any whales today as none have been in the harbour for several days.

We visit two Islands with the first named Engel. This is where the Puffin birds are sitting on land near their burrows.

The second island is home to many Puffins and is called Akurey and from here the birds and Puffin are flying out across the water. There are thousands of birds in the water and flying.

The Guide, Emily, then advised that we are now to sail to the second island which is within eye-sight, about 2 miles away. She said we will notice a significant difference as the Puffin are largely water based and there is a colony of 15,000 birds. They will also swim about the boat, but will be readily flying about us. There is a total of 30,000plus birds who come to nest here in Iceland. There are other larger colonies in Greenland. there were up to 10,000-15,000 on the first island. More than this on the second island.

She indicated that at this time of year, the birds do not have any orange colour on their beaks. That is restricted to breeding time, when they use the orange feathers as sign of fertility to attract a partner. They do not remain as pairs beyond the one season. They breed every year. The chicks will be in the burrows and the birds we saw whether on the island or on the second island and flying are having a break from the chicks who are in their burrows about 30-50 cm below ground.

Emily commented that there are Puffins on each of the Northern continents asnd there is one large colony of about 1 million birds. However, the changes to climate, the pressures from man have seen a reduction in the sizes of the colonies, particulalrly over the last 10-20 years.

Emily expressed concern as to the climate change issues, not the breeding as such , but the significant amendments to their geographic locations and areas for both living and breeding.

We spent almost 25 minutes in the area of this island with thousands of birds flying around us and back and forth to the islands.

We completed the tour returned to the pier, alighted the rubber boat, which had been comfortable , then we walked back to our hotel and on the way Jeanette did some shopping for souvenirs and we also purchased some rolls aqnd a soft drink for a late afternoon lunch.

It had been a terrific excursion. Emily will also send us some specific photos from her camera over the next 24 hours. I will add those to our pages.