Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: Conditions sailing out were really good. We had some sun and the swell was really low. While we were sailing out, we got the information from Whale Safari, that one of their RIBs found two humpback whales. This was awesome news, so we made our way there to meet up with them and the humpbacks. On our way there, we were able to see one or two minke whales surfacing underneath flocks of sea birds, but as we wanted to see what the humpback whales were up to we continued our way to the RIB. When we got there, we found the two humpback whales swimming side by side, surfacing together and fluking every now and again. This was awesome and because they were so calm, we stayed with them for most of the trip. Towards the end of the trip we tried to find another minke whale and as we saw some feeding, we made our way towards one of the flocks of sea birds. On our way there, we saw a minke whale on our right side in the distance, so we decided to get a little closer to it. Almost out of time, this minke whale surfaced only about 50m away from the boat, about 3 times. This minke came up head first and showed a good proportion of its body, which was just fantastic and we felt very lucky to have seen it. To make this trip even better, on our way back we encountered some white-beaked dolphins swimming in front of us. They even approached the boat and swam underneath it, making it possible to see these animals up close. As they were moving a little further away, we even saw them leaping out of the water and once again, we felt very lucky to have had such an awesome trip!
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: Well, it looks like we could actually ask for more! For example, we could have asked for a magnificent tour with 4 out of 4 of the most common species of cetaceans in this bay, as it happen in this afternoon tour! After 40 minutes of sailing we gazed the firs individual, the first minke whale of many more to come. We didn't stay longer with the animal, we received a call that some other boats had some more minkys and a humpback whale at the same area! So there we went and... what a show we got! The humpback was there, a couple of minke whales where surfacing and feeding almost at the same area, more blows here and then all around us... We decided to follow a little bit the humpback, and we got to see a few times some fluke-ups. Then we realized it was too much the time we spent with the animal and too many the boats around, so we moved on. In the distance we saw enormous splashes that couldn't have been made by anything else than a whale! So we went, really excited to check it out. It was actually the same area in which we spotted a few big blows some minutes before, so the chances that a second humpback was there were pretty high. When we arrived, however, we saw more than just another humpback. We saw white beaked dolphins (a large pod, more than 15 individuals overall) jumping and leaping close to the whale, and then they came to check on us. At least some other 3 minke whales surfaced close to our position over that time as well, but the hearts of our passengers were already with the curious dolphins that were bow riding our boat! Unfortunately we had to come back at some point, but even on our way back home we saw 6-7 more minke whales surfacing now and then, another humpback whale and some harbour porpoises in the distance! An incredible tour that will last long in our memory!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsulan: Finally good weather and clear skies after few days of storm, so the afternoon seemed to be promising, and it was. We were sailing to one of our main spotting areas when we received reports from others boat telling us that a playful whale was around. Once we arrived to the area, we could see literally thousands of birds flying around and chasing fish in the surface, a good indicator of cetacean´s presence. It didn´t take more than one minute when we saw our first blow, it was a humpback whale. We were able to see couple of time its fluke and its magnificent and powerful breathing next to our boat. But the area had more surprises for us today, just in between a frenetic moment watching our humpback and big flocks of birds another cetacean appeared, it was a minke whale and it wasn't´t alone, we spotted at least 6 of them coming and going, popping up now and then, close and far from the boat, so we were extremely happy with so many animals around. In the way back we enjoyed a calm sea and a shinning sun, it was definitely a great experience!
- Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: After the bad luck that was haunting us for the last days (particularly regarding weather) we had an amazing tour at 13:00 today. It took us around 1 hour to have our first encounter, a traveling minke whale that surfaced twice really far away from us. I don't even believe that a lot of our guests managed to spot the animal. But after that initial frustrating moment we kept sailing and we saw THE humpback whale. Not a single one, but one of the nicest! The animal surfaced quite regularly around us for more than one hour, showing us its beautiful white pattern of pigmentation in the lower side of the fluke. And surprisingly the animal started to do some peduncle's throwing, quite an unique behaviour in which the whale kind of looks like is trying to push away water from the surface of the sea with its powerful tail. To finish the show we encounter ourselves on our way back with a huge pod of harbour porpoises (around 10 individuals or even more) that, for our surprise and joy, stood with us for quite a while, jumping and leaping and swimming incredibly fast and even riding the waves our boat was generating. We couldn't ask for more!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsulan: Sailing out, we couldn't´t have asked for better conditions. The sky was clear and the sea was flat. As we were getting closer to our main sighting area, we were heading towards the other whale watching vessels that were already out and had already spotted a humpback whale. Still on our way, we spotted the first few blows from this whale close to the boats, which we were joining. We could see a lot of flocks of sea birds feeding in this area and we were sure that we would be successful on this trip. After about 50 minutes we arrived at the humpback whale and it was amazing! We saw it surface many times and it even rolled over a couple of times, making its large pectoral fins visible. Once it popped up we even got to see a beautiful ´rainblow´! After at least half an hour of staying with the whale, we wanted to head on and perhaps spot different species for the passengers. As we were about to change course, we saw a minke whale surface right next to the humpback whale. We were staying around these whales for the majority of the trip and it was an absolute pleasure. Everyone got to see them many times and the beautiful weather made this a special day for passengers and crew! Today was a good day ;)
-Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: After two crappy days, we finally had nice sea conditions again and barely any clouds were covering the sun. Enjoying the break from the bad weather, we saw two minke whales after about 45 min of sailing. We spent some more time with one of them but they were not very easy to follow due to their erratic behaviour. Therefore, we moved on and headed a bit further out and soon saw a large blow in the distance. Getting closer to that area, we saw a long back and then the tail of the whale raising above the surface - we had found a humpback whale! In the same area we also saw 2-3 more minke whales that came really close after we had stopped to look at the humpback whale. These sometimes curious whales suddenly surfaced just 20-30 m away from us without us even trying to get close! Then we focused on the humpback whale that was slowly travling first and came up to the surface frequently and fluking (lifting the tail when going for a dive). Suddenly, out of nowhere, a group of around 15 white-beaked dolphins showed up! Several animals were leaping out of the water and then they were playing around the humpback whale for some time which was probably not to happy about the company of the dolphins. The dolphins were quite abundant and some of them headed away and we followed them for a while before taking a circle to get a last look at the humpback whale which got as close as 20-30 m to us, and then we started our way back to the harbour!
- Hanna Michel
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, artcic tern, atlantic puffin, common guillemot, razorbill, kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull, and eider duck.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. There is little wind today so the sea conditions should be good. For those sensitive to motion sickness we do provide seasickness tablets to take before the tour, free of charge! For any further information please contact our ticket office at elding@elding.is or by phone at +354 519 5000.
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