Tour at 19:00
Report from Eldey: For our midnight sun tour of today we decided to give it a try and go out of Keflavik harbour, since we were hearing a lot of good reports of sightings on that area. And what a good idea we had! Just while waiting for the boat to arrive we were able to see one humpback whale just in the middle of the harbour, meters away from us! And once the tour started, we went straight away to that humpy swimming still around the area. There was a second individual in the area, but definitely this one was the humpback of the evening! While traveling towards it we saw the animal half-breaching for a couple of times. Then we stared at the animal just going for short dives and showing us its fluke incessantly. At last we decided to move away, trying to spot the pod of pilot whales the previous tour found nearby. Unfortunately, it looks like we were only able of finding one solitary individual that was swimming extremely fast and far away from us. But to ease the disappointing with this species we made our way back to Reykjavik while hearing the magnificent songs of our troubadour for the night. The best way to close this incredible day!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: This tour started out very differently than we had assumed in the morning. Because we got notice that there was a lot of marine life around the area of Keflavik, we decided to go for a longer tour today! Of course this was in accordance with all our passengers. It was quite windy and the waves had picked up so the first 1 ½ hours of getting to Keflavik were a bit bumpy. But this paid of by far. Still a bit further out, we spotted a minke whale only 10 metres away from the boat! It surprised us so not everyone got to see it as it went for a deep dive afterwards. However, once we were in the sheltered harbour area we were greeted by a huge pod of amazing pilot whales. There were at least 30 animals, probably much more though. It was hard to estimate as they were spread all around us, two groups of 7 close by and many more just behind them. We even saw two calves with them. They were feeding on a fish called Mackerel, which at the moment is very abundant around Keflavik, which also let us see some local fishing boats around us as well as a large patch of Mackerel right at the water surface. Once we had left the pilot whales we headed towards 2 very large blows we had been seeing for a while and, extremely close to the harbour, found the 2 humpback whales that had been causing these blows! It was incredible to get to see them in such close proximity, some of their surfaces less than 20 metres away. We got to see their flukes several times and could even hear them as they exhaled. It was a truly special tour that made you appreciate every second of it.
- Nicole Koestner & Sabrina Voswinkel
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The wind had picked up and it was very disceiving to our passengers that were enjoying the calm and warm of the old harbour. Once around teh sea wall, things were different and soon a lot went down to our warm saloon or grabbed one of our overalls. We searchered a very large area of the bay but there didn´t seem to be much life around. Our passengers spotted two pods of harbour porpoises, First with about 4-6 animals and 2-3 in the the other. We enjoyed the sun and the warmth on the way home as we sailed with the wind and photographed the beautiful landscape and the close encounters of the northern fulmars. Always very nice to be out at sea but unfortunately no whales or dolphins so we offered our passengers compimentary tickets in the hope they get a chance to come again in the next two years.
- Megan Whittaker
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: The weather was very beautiful and everyone found a great spot on our upper deck to enjoy the Icelandic summer sun. Today it seemed that there was not so much wildlife in the bay. Thus, it took us more than one hour until our first encounter. Then we saw a minke whale surfacing a couple of times close to the front of our boat. Although, this individual went for a long dive after this sequence of surfaces, we stayed quite a while in the area, as only briefly before we arrived also a basking shark was spotted in the area. Unfortunately, none of the two animals showed up again, that's why we decided to head to another area. Informed by the captain of one of the speedboats we soon found a nice pod of 6-9 white-beaked dolphins, which simultaneously surfaced a few times. What a great experience towards the end of our tour!
-Nicole Koestner
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsulan: It looks like the weather is giving us a little bit of rest! We sailed out in really calm water, with almost no wind and just a little bit os swell due to the bad weather we went through the previous days. After 40 minutes of sailing we received the call from one of the other whale watching boats that they have found a minke whale. Unfortunately when we arrived we only spotted the animal quite far away, around 500 to 600 meters away, and thus decided to resume our travel. Just after that we came across a basking shark! The first one of the season! We stood with the animal for quite a while, it was surprisingly relaxed and quiet. Just filtering the surface of the sea in search of plancton. When we decided to move a little bit more towards the bay we found, at last, some more cetaceans! A pod of 10-12 white beaked dolphins was waiting for us. There were a few juveniles among them, most likely the reason why they behaved a little bit shy with us - not entirely elusive though! So after all, a beautiful way of starting the morning in the Faxafloi.
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 9:00
Report from Eldey: What a trip - sunshine, only a bit of long swell and only little wind. We could see all of the two peninsulas surrounding Faxafloi and had ideal spotting conditions. Our first encounter was with a minke whale. It was initially milling in the area near the town of Akraness, but after 4 surfaces it started to move faster and lifting it's rostrum out of the water, suggesting that it was feeding. It started to move around more randomly and taking longer inbetween breaths. Thus, we moved on westwards. A very good decision, as we found a species that is very special to see as we only get them in this bay during the few warm weeks we have in the icelandic summer. A basking shark! It got within centimeters of the boat and with the sunshine we could see all of it's body, it's open mouth and gills very clearly. It was a truly special encounter.
- Sabrina Voswinkel
Birds seen on today's tours: Northern Gannet, Atlantic Puffin, Northern Fulmar, Eider Duck and Kittiwake.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. There is ittle wind and hopefully the sun will shine on us today. There could be some movement on the boat but if you are sensitive to motion sickness though, we do provide seasickness tablets in our ticket office, free of charge!
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