Sunday, 17 March 2024

Sunday, 17 March 2024

Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 9:00 and 13:00 Classic Whale Watching tour. Make sure to dress according to weather, as it is usually colder at sea than on land.

  • CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00
  • CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00

CLASSIC WHALE WATCHING | 09:00

Report from Eldey: Today on this inclement weather forecast we searched for some action in the bay. It wasn't that bad actually, it was just a bit windy and 1 metre waves, nothing too bad. We sailed close to shore since we had been lucky enough on the past few days with sightings near the islands of Reykjavík. After about half an hour of sailing around, we found something we were expecting! A blow, and it wasn't any type of blow, it was from a whale, a humpback whale! This whale was between Engey and Akurey, coming up and down while travelling and every 3 to 5 breaths it would give us an excellent fluke dive. After the first one, it was clear who this whale was, it was Frodo, our "resident" humpback whale. It came very close to us, less than 10 metres, and our passengers were delighted to see such a big animal near their noses! This whale seems to be keen on the red colour. Well, we decided that we didn't want to bother Frodo too much so we searched around the bay to see something else. Unfortunately, our time was short and we went back to the harbour after an amazing encounter with this beautiful beast.

- Pedro Teixeira

CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00

Report from Eldey: It was a bit windy today but without any swell we didn't feel much movement on the boat. We sailed out to the area where the humpback whale in the morning had been, but instead found three or four quick harbour porpoises surfing past our boat. When we went back to the islands around Reykjavík, our captain spotted the back of a minke whale. This individual was surfacing very frequently, and sometimes came very close to the boat so that we could have a detailed look at her. When she went for a deep and long dive and other boats started approaching, we continued our search towards Viðey and Skarfabakki and it wasn´t long before we spotted the blow of a humpback whale. Thanks to the numerous fluke dives, we were able to identify this individual as Frodo - a humpback whale that has been around for the last couple of months. Initially, she was travelling rather fast, but then all of a sudden she breached with her whole body out of the water! We were lucky enough to see this spectacular behaviour three times in a row before it was our time to head back to the harbour with incredible memories of today´s whales. 

- Eline van Aalderink

Bird species encountered today:

Northern gannet, northern fulmar, black guillemot, common guillemot, great black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, eider duck, great cormorant, European shag, black-legged kittiwake