Tour 20:30
Report from Elding: Midnight tours are always special, not just because of live music but also because during night the boat traffic is reduced so it´s very quiet and relaxing to sail under low sun. Tonight sky was mostly covered by clouds but we still could enjoyed pretty sunset over Reykjanes peninsula. Our first sightings were feeding minky whales. At least 3 of them were surfacing under flock of birds. We could watch them from very close. After nice time with them we went further to encountered pod of white-beaked dolphins 5 minutes later. Dolphins came so close to us, even take a dive under our boat so we could see them clearly trough the water. It was cool! Few minutes later, we had spot another minke in distance. When we went there, we saw a humpback whale. 2 humpback whales! When we were watching one which was feeding with mouth wide open, head above surface, then another individual passed next to us! What a combo. And minke whales were around us till end of the tour, some enough close to smell their stinky breath. On our way home we get a call that there is something special going on behind us. We turned back to see an amazing breaching humpback whale! Whale jump few times but unfortunately when we get closer its stopped. Anyway, we spend few more minutes watching two humpback surfacing from time to time and showing us their tails. We came back delay but there was not a single person regretting it!
- Ewa Malinowska
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: On our afternoon tour we had to stand some heavy rain for quite a while when we were out at sea but in terms of sightings it was just as good as the other tours! First, we encountered an amazing minke whale! This was a very relaxed individual that just swam around us slowly and ended up circling around the boat so it was very easy for everyone to get a close look at this minke that almost seemed to be followed by 3-4 harbour porpoises. We moved on after a few minutes and headed to the area where we had seen the humpback whale before and after searching the area, the humpback whale popped up just 80 m away from us! We spent quite some time with this young individual that seemed to be a bit sleepy. In the beginning, we got to see a peduncle throw but then the humpback calmed down and came to the surface on a regular basis, taking ca. 4 breaths and then going for a short dive. Two times we actually got to see a VERY nice fluke-up when the whale lifted it´s tail high up in the air as it dove down. While watching the humpback whale and also on our way back to the harbour, we came across another 6-7 minke whales!
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Although it was completely overcast by now, the wind had calmed down even more, leaving us to depart on a pleasantly flat water surface. Because we had such a large amount of minke whales on our previous tour, we headed towards that area for this trip as well. Sure enough, we found a lot of minke whales still in that area, beginning our tour with an encounter of 3 minke whales. We stayed with these for a good 10 minutes until we saw a blow just a bit further ahead. It was clear that this blow belonged to a humpback whale, so we headed there. Once we got within only 200m of this humpback whale, we spotted a second one, only another 500m away!! Both of them were milling, so resting in the area. This was great, as they moved and surfaced very slowly. This made them very easy to see and to take photos of. Both even showed their fluke. Once a lot of other boats started coming, we left the area to give the whales more space. We again saw minke whales every few minutes as well as some great birdlife. To end the trip, we also spotted 3 harbour porpoises that traveled all along the side of the boat. This was a fantastic trip with wildlife around us all three hours.
- Sabrina Voswinkel
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsulan: Sun in the morning! That's always good news in Iceland but specially when you are about to go for a whale watching trip. So good the weather conditions were that we were already happy before we saw any cetacean, but the trip couldn't start better. The port was still close to our backs, it didn't pass more than 10 minutes from our departure and we spotted two small pods of white-beaked dolphins. They split in two groups and we saw some juveniles jumping out of the water and speeding up couple of times, it was amazing! We sailed further out because we had reports from an amazing cetacean waiting for us, but in the way we saw a minke whale coming from nowhere. We didn't stop because we knew that more incredible animals were waiting for us, and it was like that. We spotted a big blow in the distance and just few minutes later a big humpback whale appeared, she was resting over the water, a behavior called milling. After few good moments with this calm whale, we moved forward trying to spot more cetacean and we did. The are was full of fish so a new species, minke whale, started to appear in every directions, we count at least 6 different individuals in less than 30 minutes, it was really special moment. When the time to come back was coming, we got closer again to our humpie to say goodbye and she was still resting, definitely a good way to start the week. The way back was quiet and smooth and we enjoyed excellent views of Reykjavik.
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 9:00
Report from Eldey: Again we had a very calm start into the day. With minimal winds the water surface was flat and the overcast sky made it not only good spotting conditions, but also good photography conditions. It didn't take us long to find several bigger flocks of birds, obviously hunting for fish. With them, we found numerous minke whales! There were so many all around, close by and in the distance, that it was hard to keep count. By the end of the tour, we surely reached at least 20 minke whales! The ones that surfaced closer to us were very good to see and sometimes easy to predict for nice photo opportunities. Also very nice was a juvenile humpback whale that we encountered whilst slowly going through this bird-filled area. It was very trusting and came very close to our boat. It even did a peduncle slab, causing a huge splash of water and a lot of excitement. In addition, we had two pods of 3-4 harbour porpoises, of which the first were active and leaping out of the water high enough for us to be able to see most of their body. Overall a very fun tour with great encounters and many happy faces in the end.
- Sabrina Voswinkel
Birds seen today: Northern Fulmar, Northern Gannet, Atlantic Puffin, Common Guillemot, Black Guillemot, Brunnich Guillemot, Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake, Little Auk, Arctic Skua, European Storm Petrel, Manx Shearwater and Arctic Tern.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik on this beautiful and sunny day. There could be a little movement on the boat out on Faxabay due to an undercurrent and the direction off the wind
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