Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: A fine misty drizzle of rain dampened the top deck throughout most of the tour. However this didn´t put our hardy passengers off - who used the overalls provided and helped me search for whales throughout the tour! Due to the high swells and white caps it was a difficult to to spot animals however, after some searching we spotted a blow of a humpback whale over a mile in the distance. We followed the blow until we were able to watch the animal feeding - surfacing and diving for over half an hour and doing very short feeding dives even surfacing 30 m next to the boat! The humpback was spectacular you could even see its blowholes when it surfaced but the northern gannets really stole the show with their amazing plunge diving. Hundreds of them were flocking and diving just meters from the boat in every direction. It was incredible you could even see them swimming under the water!
- Darcy Philpott
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: The weather was more or less the same as the morning tour, kept relatively dry but the mist was covering a lot of the surrounding landscape. After about one hour we spotted a humpback whale in the distance and after searching for a couple of minutes it showed up quite close to the boat. The whale gave us a spectacular show while it suddenly breached about 400-500 m in front of the boat. We also saw at least one (maybe two) minke whales that were probably feeding on the same food as the humpback. It was incredible to see all the sea birds gathering around the whales, also feeding on the fish. Northern gannets were diving like torpedos down into the water, really fascinating to see up close.
- Megan and Johanna
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: We set sail on a slightly damp but otherwise fairly warm day. It was smooth sailing until we reached further out into the bay where we experienced a few swells. After sailing out into the bay a blow of a humpback whale was spotted a kilometer in the distance so the boat headed in that direction. On arrival we watched this magestic animal surface multiple times and raise its fluke allowing us to identify this animal as Picasso. Picasso is a humpback which was first identified in Faxaflói bay in 2014 and has been a regular visitor to the bay in the last few weeks. While watching Picasso surface a minke whale was also spotted only 200 meters away! This minke surfaced a few times but due to the swells it may have been a bit difficult to spot. As time was running out Eldey began its sail back to Reykjavik, a lone white-beaked dolphin was then spotted a 100 meters away, it was rather odd that this animal was travelling alone as dolphins usually travel in pods of about 5-6 individuals, but it was traveling very fast and so was only spotted twice. The sail back was fairly smooth with less wind and less swells when suddenly a minke whale surfaced only 20 meters from the boat, you could even see its blowholes coming up from the waters surface! It was really amazing, so close and so unexpected!
- Tess Hudson
Bird reported: Manx shearwater, puffin, kittiwake, Northern fulmar, blue fulmar, Northern gannet, common guillemot, black-backed gulls, arctic tern, great skua, arctic skua, razorbill
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. Its raining every now and then and around 6m/s from the south. There will be some movement on the boat due to swells.
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