Tour at 20:30
Report from Hafsulan: We left the harbour for the midnight tour with all our hopes in the pocket. The night/day was promising and the sea state was pretty calm and we had excellent visibility of Faxafloi. We headed to one of our main spotting areas and as soon as we arrived we saw some splashes in the distance, we got close and we discovered few white-beaked dolphins jumping out of the water and doing the so-called head slapping, it was a fantastic moment. Later on, we continued in our pursue for more cetaceans and it didn´t take too long when we saw two blows, certainly there were two humpbacks whales. We tried to get closer but they were elusive and we let them be. After a while looking for more animals, we saw again our crazy and playful dolphins coming and going, jumping out of the water and giving us really good moments. Apart from that, some elusive minke whales popped up in the distance, but it was quite hard to spot them. When we though that it was all done for the day, a friendly pod of harbour porpoises surface just in front of the boat and they stayed a while with us. In the way back we enjoyed live music and excellent weather.
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: Weather was getting better and better. Beautiful spotting conditions that made this tour an impressive 4 out of the 4 most common species of cetaceans we can enjoy in the Faxafloi.It took us around 50 minutes to spot the first minke whale of the tour (out of 2-3 individuals that we saw in total). Although a little bit far away, we manage to get a good look at one of them. The minke whales were quickly replaced by some white beaked dolphins that we saw jumping in the distance and then approaching towards us. It was quite a big pod (around 7-8 individuals) quite playful that approached us and swam underneath our boat and bow ride for a while. After that we spotted quite far away in the distance some big blows, belonging to a humpback whale as we saw when we approached the area. After a few minutes a second individual came along but, to be honest, the whales were behaving today rather elusive (or maybe the were more interested in feeding on the bottom at that time). After losing the first one, we approached the second individual and followed it for a while but, after a bit, the whale disappeared and some more dolphins came up once more! Again, pretty funny and enjoying our presence. Every now and then we spotted a few harbour porpoises popping out of the water. Quite an enjoyable tour with the dolphins as protagonists!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsulan: Finally we had really summer-like weather on this tour! The sun was shining and the wind was light as breeze. Following advices from other boats we went directly to the area where humpback whale was. For the first time when we saw it, whale just went for a deep dive showing us fluke. It's been missing for a while when a whale appeared just behind our backs! After quick turn we had it in front of us but whale went for dive once more time. Because there was a lot of other boats around our captain decided to go further but then unexpectedly this humpback popped up less then 20 m in front of us! That was amazing! Leaving this whale behind we found ourselves surrounded by minke whales! There was so many that I get crazy with pointing them, whales were just everywhere around! Also a harbour porpoises came close to our boat jumping over the water! Rest of this tour we sailed from one flock of birds to another, every time finding some more minke whales just under diving birds! That was marvelous tour!
- Ewa Malinowska
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: While the swell remained low, the sun came out a little and conditions promised for a good trip of whale watching, which it sure turned out to be! As we entered our main sighting area, we started to spot some minke whales which seemed to be feeding. Underneath a flock of feeding sea birds, we were able to spot a minke whale which did a sideways roll, which was awesome. This is a feeding behaviour and as it was doing the roll, we saw part of the fluke, which usually remains under the water with these minke whales. This was one of many minkes we saw on this trip! While we continued to watch some of the minkes, we spotted some harbour porpoises on the side of the boat as well. On the way further out of the bay to perhaps find a humpback whale, we spotted some white-beaked dolphins on our left side in the distance. They were leaping out of the water at times and as we got closer, everybody got a good look at them. They even jumped out of the water relatively close to us and surfaced sometimes only 5 meters away from the boat. After staying with these dolphins for a while, we continued to travel through our whale watching area. One of the other whale watching vessels in the bay informed us that they sighted a humpback whale, which was good news. We made our way there and after some searching, we finally found it. This individual was a little passive and after only a few surfaces would fluke and travel quite some distance. After seeing it at about three separated occasions, we had to make our way back as our time had run out, but none the less, this trip was fun and very successful!
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsulan: Beginning of this tour wasn't very pleasant due to wind and small rainfall from time to time, but with every next minute weather was getting better and in overalls which we always provide for our passengers everyone enjoyed sailing. It wasn't easy to look for cetaceans when cloud almost touched sea, reducing our visibility, but by following noisy flocks of feeding birds we were able in short time to found our first minke whale! There was few of them feeding in the same area, in total during this trip we have seen at least 6 individuals! Beside minke's also groups of harbor porpoises appeared twice swimming around boat. This small and cute animals always makes us happy. Between encounters with cetaceans we enjoyed a great bird-watching show when plenty of different species were hunting together for small fish which we could easy see in their beaks! It's fun to watch so active wildlife from so close!
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: As we were sailing out this morning, conditions were really suited for whale watching with low swell height and a mostly cloudy sky. Getting closer to our main sighting area, we found some flocks of feeding sea birds. Checking the area around these flocks, we shortly after found some minke whales surfacing close by. We actually had around three minkes surface around the flocks that we were watching, which was pretty cool! As we were circling around this area and watching these minkes surface, we also had some harbour porpoises pop up right next to us. After we spent quite some time with the minke whales and saw many surfaces, we decided to move further out of the bay and try to find another species of cetacean. While we were moving we were actually lucky to also spot two white-beaked dolphins. We are always happy to see these guys, but unfortunately they seemed to be resting, so we did not stay with them for long, as we did not want to interfere with them. As we were looking at another minke whale that was close to us, we actually saw a whale breach at least a kilometer away from the boat! It breached about two to three times and the guide as well as the researchers agreed that judging by its body shape, this was a humpback whale. Unfortunately, as we made our way in that direction, the breaching had stopped and we could not find another whale for the rest of the tour. Overall, this trip was fun and we got to see lots of animals including some cool sea birds!
- Friedrich Rittner
Birds seen today: Arctic Tern, Common Guillemot, Black Guillemot, Atlantic Puffin, Northern Gannet, Arctic Skua, Great Skua, Northern Fulmar, Common Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Storm Petrel, Razorbill Black-headed gull and Eider ducks.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. There is little wind but there could be some movement on the boat out on Faxabay. If you are 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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