Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: What a wonderfull evening with whales, dolphins and live music. We kept dry in our overalls in the light rain and enjyed sailing in smooth sea conditions. Minke whales were seen throughout the whole tour, we got good looks at few of them although we never followed them around. The reason for that was the great sightings of 2 pods of white beaked dolphins, at least 12-13 individuals and 2 humpback whales that stole our attention. Our first pod of dolphins approached the boat, swam all around us, so we could see their whole bodies, from snout to tail. While following them we noticed a humpback further out that was being followed by another pod of white beaked dolphins! It seemed that the hupback was a bit bothered by their company, lob tailing and forming loud noises while exhailing! The dolphins followed the humpbk for a while but when they left it the humpback changed behavoir, became more relaxed and dived for longer. Right before we started heading back we found another humpback. We saw even more minke whales on the way back, there must have been at least 7 individuals in total over the whole tour.
-Sigurlaug Sigurdardottir
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: The rhythm of the day kept going on a high level. And this time there was no rain to be afraid of, so we sailed out on a wonderful afternoon again into the Faxa bay. After half an hour of sailing we spotted the first cetaceans of the bay, a pod of white beaked dolphins pretty active that swam along our side for a while. The youngest individuals were jumping and leaping, the elders a little bit more shy. After a while we spotted big splashes in the distance that could only have been caused by a humpback whale. And it was, as we saw the animal tail slapping and peduncle throwing for quite a while in the distance. Though the animal stopped doing this fun behaviour, we arrived to the main feeding area of the bay and we enjoyed the presence of at least 5 minke whales lunge feeding. Some more dolphins came along (small pods of around 5-6 individuals) and, at last, another couple of humpback whales! We were already thinking in heading back when we saw one humpback pectoral slapping the surface, what we believed its way of waving goodbye to us!
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsulan: Shortly after we left the dock, at Gróta, we encountered a humpback whale. It was a juvenile. It was relaxed, just chilling in the water close to our boat. It's not every day that we can enjoy such close and personal encounters with our friends in the bay! It started raining so we moved on into more pleasant weather. A little bit down the road we found a larger humpback whale which was more active. It was truly amazing when it showed its fluke! We continued on our path and discovered at least four minke whales feeding under flocks of birds. The whales were quite elusive, but we had a good opportunity to see them. What an excellent start to the weekend!
- Ewa Malinowska
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: The spotting conditions were amazing during this trip but, unfortunately, we had a drizzling rain that was annoying us for the fist half of the tour! Nonetheless it was worth it, judging by the amazing show we got to enjoy! Again we saw the first humpback whale quite soon, 20 minutes after departure. The animal was swimming slowly, probably resting as the ones we saw at the beginning of the previous tour. We decided not to disturb it longer and moved a little bit away. We saw one solitary white beaked dolphin that, of course, disappeared really soon. The bird activity also increased quite a lot the further we got ourselves into the bay, and soon we had 4-5 minke whales surfacing really close to us (50 m away!) and even lunge feeding! After enjoying them for a while we spotted a huge blow in the distance and a tail slapping! There was another humpback whale decided to make our lives a little happier! As we approached the animal went for a dive but towards a flock of feeing seabirds. We got the impression that something nice was about to happen and then the humpback whale started to make lunge feedings for a few times! But the best was yet to come. After a while the animal tried a new technique: trap-feeding! A rare behaviour first reported in humpback whales only 6 years ago! It started more or less with a spy-hoping that turned into the whale opening its huge mouth, waiting for a few fishes to enter on it - the trap - and then closing it violently! An amazing sighting... And all around us more and more minke whales where feeding around us. To end the journey we had a couple of curious white beaked dolphins that decided to check us and swim underneath our boat for a few minutes. Definitely one of my top ten tours!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsúlan: Some grey skies greeted us as we set sail this morning, but we could see the promise of better weather up ahead, so we soldiered on and were rewarded early on by the most laidback humpback whale ever. This juvenile was logging at the surface and despite having three different boats around, it was chilled out enough to come within 50 meters of our boat and just surface quite slowly, allowing everyone to get good pictures. It was even considerate enough to bob just below the surface so we could all arrange ourselves in the best position for whenever it decided to surface. If this was the same juvenile I had a few days ago, it´s highly possible it tired itself out with all of that breaching! After spending some nice quality time with our relaxed humpy, we ventured further out into the bay and tried to find some other animals. We were sadly unsuccessful on that account, but we still returned to port very satisfied, as on our way back we had another encounter with our resting humpback.
-Rachel Pool
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: This tour was one of those that completely break our schemes of a "regular" whale watching tour, if it exists such a thing in the Faxafloi! Only 15 minutes away from the harbour we spotted the first humpback whale of the tour! A really tiny individual, most likely a sub-adult, that was surfacing with regularity and going usually for deep dives. After that we spotted a second individual on our back. It was another young individual almost as small as the previous one that was, quite clearly, resting/sleeping. After watching them for a few minutes we decided to give them their space and we proceed. After this moment it took us a little bit to find more cetaceans, but as soon as we gazed an increasing bird activity, the minke whales started to pop up! Overall we saw around 5 individuals up close (around 100 m). To finish the tour we enjoyed a third humpback whale that gifted us with a fluke-up. What a wonderful beginning of the day!
- Alberto Alejandro
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 out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik on this rainy day. There is little wind but it will be raining on and off today. All our boats have inside and outside areas and to make the tour even more comfortable we provide warm overalls
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