Tuesday, 18 August 2026

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, 17:00, 19:30
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 10:00, 12:00, 13:00, 15:00, 16:00, 19:00

Today's Whale Watching tours from Reykjavík are on schedule. Remember to dress according to weather and feel free to borrow our thermal overalls if needed!

Report from Eldey: Sunny skies and flat seas welcomed us on our first tour of the day. We sailed out into the bay with amazing conditions for spotting. After about 30 minutes we spot a minke whale coming up to the surface, elusive and fast it is not so easy to keep up with it. However, most people managed to see this underrated, incredible, baleen whale. We proceeded and eventually spotted a humpback whale, initially only coming to the surface and fluke diving. Later, we saw bubbles at the surface! This whale was bubble-net feeding! We stayed a little bit, but later left the area as more boats started to arrive. We moved to another area and quickly found a pair of humpback whales, resting at the surface together. It was an incredible sight as the whales came super close to the boat and we could see the entire body of the whale, the big white flippers, and massive fluke. One individual also turned on its side and started to slap the surface with its flipper, a great way to say goodbye. We left them to rest and slowly made our way back to port. 

 -Aleksandra Lechwar

Report from Hafsúlan: The sea was super smooth again and the sun was shining the entire morning. This made us look forward to a lovely time at sea. After enjoying the views from aboard for a bit, we spotted our first cetaceans! Throughout the trip, we kept spotting small pods of harbour porpoises around. As we were heading out we spotted a pod of around 3 of them. It was two humpback whales! One of them was Cheeseburger and looked like he made a friend. The two whales seemed very sleepy. They were logging right next to one another quite a bit and generally swimming slowly and spending a lot of time at the surface. In one instance, they passed underneath us which was absolutely incredible! The calm conditions and sunshine even allowed us to make out details of the whales through the water's surface and they were right next to us. As we were with the whales, we also saw a pod of around 6 harbour porpoises nearby. We stayed with these humpbacks for a bit and eventually carried on. We found another humpback whale. This one was not sleeping. It was doing very neat surface sequences with a nicely lifted fluke at the end of each one. The underside of this whale's fluke was strikingly white and almost flashing at us in the sun. We observed a few sequences, some of them further away and two very close to our boat!! Eventually, we said goodbye to this one as well and started heading back. On our way, we spotted another pod of around 8 harbour porpoises that were zooming through the water while creating little splashes as they went. What a great way to spend a morning!

- Hannah Carstens

Report from Eldey: Conditions were sublime in the afternoon, with sun the entire tour and calm seas. This tour exceeded all expectations as we encountered all four common species of Faxafloi bay, a full bingo! We set off into the bay and initially met a very large group of harbour porpoises, around 10 individuals chasing some fish at the surface and splashing quite a bit. It was great to see as the porpoises are usually quite shy. We sailed on and some passengers spotted a minke whale! Again, quite an elusive species that travels fast with quick direction changes. However, luck was in our favor today and we managed to see this individual quite well and then a second one immediately after. We went on further into the bay and started seeing blows from a distance. Once reached the area we could see where these blows were coming from, two humpback whales chilling at the surface! These two were relaxing for several minutes, it was insane to witness. We left them alone and turned north, we embarked on another humpback whale, feeding and diving deep, we could see the fluke of the animal come all the way out! Now it was really time to head back home so we said goodbye and went our way. En route, we saw splashes in the distance and were approached by one very young white-beaked dolphin. This was a very curious and playful dolphin that jumped various times right next to us. Alas, we had to say goodbye, we arrived home as happy as ever and more informed about these awesome creatures. 

- Matteo Poggio

Report from Hafsulan: The weather was great with very calm seas and a hot sun despite a moderate western wind. We also had an afternoon full of wildlife as we saw a minke whale very busy feeding, 2 humpback whales, doing the same thing, going on moderately long dives with the flukes nice and tall. One of them was however incredibly calm inbetween dives and surfaced a few tines really close to us, laying nearly still between breaths. This allowed us an incredibly intimate look at this gentle giant. A pod of white-beaked dolphins also passed by, leasurely travelling along, not really interested about the boats present. We also saw 3 more humpback blows in the distance, indicating much more wildlife in the area. However time ran out so we had to turn back around, but luckily we got enjoy a sunny sail back to Reykjavik!

Milan Vansteelandt

Report from Eldey - We headed out into beautiful sunshine and calm seas, with perfect conditions for a day on the water. Our first sightings were a few very sneaky harbour porpoises, which appeared briefly before disappearing beneath the waves. We soon moved on after spotting the unmistakable big blow of a humpback whale in the distance. When we reached the area, we also had a brief sighting of a minke whale nearby. Things became even more exciting when five white-beaked dolphins arrived and began bothering the humpback! The dolphins seemed to annoy the whale quite a lot, with the humpback rolling at the surface and repeatedly pec-slapping while they swam around it. Once the dolphins finally moved on, the humpback settled down and began actively feeding. It was fantastic to watch the change in behaviour and see this magnificent whale getting back to what it does best—feeding in the rich waters around us. A wonderful encounter in calm seas and sunshine, with harbour porpoises, a minke whale, playful white-beaked dolphins and an actively feeding humpback all in one trip.

-Aleksandra Lechwar

Report from Hafsúlan: Sun was over. Technically, it was still there. However, we could no longer see it. When we left port, everything was still okay. We passed by Engey and we could already see complications looming. In front of us there was a dense wall of fog that was not there an hour earlier. No forecasts could have warned us about this and fog this dense is not typical for the area. As the fog crept closer, we spotted a humpback whale that showed up right next to us. We managed to see one short surface sequence close to us. The next time it showed up, it was at the edge of the 50 metres visibility that we had now. We stuck around a bit because we were hoping to see it again, but we lost it. What the fog!? We went further into the bay in hopes of finding an area that had more visibility. We had zero information on the expanse of this fog, so we tried our luck. We found some sea birds and did some search and rescue circles in a fishy area to try to locate some cetaceans, but no luck. After a whole day of sun and whales, we had no chance of finding anything because the whole bay was covered in this zero-visibility blanket. It was REALLY fogged up! Because we had practically impossible conditions to find anything and the humpback sighting was very short, we decided to offer our passengers complimentary tickets so they can try their luck again in hopes of less fogged up conditions.

- Hannah Carstens

Arctic tern, Northern fulmar, Atlantic puffin, great skua, Arctic skua, greater and lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, Northern gannet, black-legged kittiwake, common guillemot, black guillemot