Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: The weather continued in very good conditions. The sea was smooth and calm, it seems like perfect spotting conditions. The emotion began when about an hour after our departure a solitary minke whale just came across our path. We didn't stayed too much with it, as we were expecting to arrive to the place where we saw the humpbacks whales in the previous tour. In our way we also had the opportunity to see a small pod of white beaked dolphins. We arrive to the are and tried to spot them, but we stood there for half an hour without seeing nothing more. A couple of minke whales showed up pretty far away. We focused our attention in them when, suddenly, a humpback whale appeared really close to us, and started surfacing all around the boat. It did seemed very interested in our presence in the area, as it kept going around and around us. We also manage to spot the white long pectoral fins under the surface of the water. Then it left - or that we thought -, and we focused another time our attention into the minke whales. Just when we spotted one of them at 12 o'clock, about 400 m away, the humpback whale returned and breached just in front of us, no more far than 20 m away! It was a real spectacle! In our way back to the harbour, we also manage to see some pods of harbour porpoises, so it was definitely an amazing tour.
- Alberto & Hanna
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out in very goods conditions, just some light wind an very minor swell. About half an hour into the tour we spotted some harbour porpoises. We managed to see them coming up a few times but then lost them. After that we spotted a blow in the distance which was the blow of a humpback whale. We moved towards it and see it coming up a number of times. While watching the first humpback whale we spotted a second humpback whale. Due to the large number of boats around the first animal we decided to move towards the second animal. We saw the second humpback whale splashing and realized it was fluke slapping which was an amazing sight. The animal however decided to put up quite a show for us today and breached no less than 8 times! Followed by waving its pectoral fin at us and putting its head above the water. It was incredible and everybody got a great view of the animal. When we decided to go back to the harbour we also spotted a minke whale. We saw it coming up a few times before heading back to Reykjavik. All in all it was an amazing tour.
- Anouk & Hanna
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out in perfect whale watching conditions this morning, no winds and the sea flat like a mirror. It didn't take a long time for us to come across several small pods of harbour porpoises. They were very easy to spot and we could observe their small backs coming up frequently. While watching another pod of these small cetaceans, we found also a pod of 10+ white-beaked dolphins close to them. As usual, the dolphins were amazing and quite interested coming closer to us. There were even a few calves in the group surfacing close to their mothers and leaping around. At one point it seemed like a couple of dolphins was mating right in front of the boat creating some splashes - not something we see on many tours. After a long time we left the dolphins to look for something else further offshore and soon found 2 minke whales as well. They were a few times within 100 m so that everyone got a some close looks at these small whales. They were probably feeding in this area with many flocks of feeding birds. Then suddenly another group of 8-10 white-beaked dolphins showed up and we followed them for a while to give other boats the opportunity to look at the minke whales. A great tour full of wildlife!
- Hanna & Anouk
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, great black-backed gull, kittiwake, Iceland gull, eider duck, arctic tern, Atlantic puffin, common guillemot, cormorant, and arctic skua.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. It is fully clouded but almost no wind. There could be some movement on the boat out on the bay.