10:00, 13:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:30: RUNNING
Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: At the beginning of the tour it looked already that there will be no sunset on this evening, but who cares? The whales certainly don't! So we sailed into the bay and found quite soon a big flock of seabirds wirreling around, we slowed down and suddenly a minke whale came up quite close to the boat. It took us all by surprise, and the whale seemed to be in the mood of hide and seek. We tried to stay with it but it was difficult to spot it again. We continued our tour and once more saw a minke popping up in the distance but not again. Unfortunately we did not had more sightings and decided to give all our passengers another chance to come back again and be hopefully more lucky by then!
- Sarah Kompatscher
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: One more tour without the rain, after the rainy June, makes a world of difference. Truth be told, the tour turned out to be rather difficult, as the few minke whales we had encountered throughout the tour were obviously in no mood for people watching. The few times they surfaced, it was hard to have a good look at them. For this reason we decided to give complementary tickets to our guests, so they come on one more, hopefully more successful whale watching tour. Nevertheless, the atmosphere on the boat was good and we were very fortunate to see really a lot of Atlantic puffins sitting in the water as well as flying all around us in the middle of the bay.
-Lucas Heinrich
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding:It was bit foggy as we left Reykjavik this morning, but we had almost no wind and sailing was smooth. After having searched the area for a while, we found two large flock of birds, and sure enough, there was a minke whale! We were able to stay with the minke for a while and saw it surface several times. Eventually the whale went for a deeper dive and was not seen again. We searched the area a bit more before eventually heading back to the harbour. The fog was practically gone by then, so we were able to enjoy the lovely scenery on our way back.
-Anne Moullier
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Our vessel left Reykjavik sailing through the persistent gray and wet Icelandic summer weather. We started by spotting a minke whale at some distance that we were able to track and observe closely later on. At some point there were also 2 or 3 harbor porpoises around. But as usual the latter were quite fast and conspicuous. Shortly after we left our first minke whale, we found another one of the same species. And as we were determined to cross more species of our check list, closer to the end of the tour, it was possible to enjoy the presence of 5 white beaked dolphins that were probably foraging. Before we head back towards Reykjavik, we took a last glance of another minke whale, this time a much smaller and curious one.
- Ines Cunha
Tour at 10:00
Report from Elding: This tour shall once more prove that cetaceans do not care about the weather! We sailed out into the rainclouds After around half an hour we saw our first minke whale. Unfortunately it was elusive so we continued our way as another minke whale was seen by some very attentive kids, but also this one did not show up again so we went on as we spotted a blow in direction Akraness! As we came closer, the animal surfaced two more times and showed its fluke before going for a deeper dive - it was a humpback whale! Slowly getting closer to the animal it surfaced another few times, showing us the fluke every time before diving longer. At one moment it surfaced less then 50m away from us, so we could clearly see the massive size of this animal, just incredible! On our way back we encountered another minke whale, the 4th on this tour, who was feeding and allowed us to stay with it for some time, being able to take some beautiful pictures.
- Sarah Kompatscher
Tour 9.00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out from Reykjavik in 4 m/s wind from south east and almost no swell. After 30 minutes of sailing we found ourselves in fog and misty rain. Suddenly we were able to smell a minke whale, it smells like fish, and we started searching the area. We managed to see the whale twice before it disappeared into the fog. Searching the bay further, we encountered a pod of 4-5 white beaked dolphins. They stayed around and we could enjoy seeing the dolphins jump out of the water, a really nice encounter! On our way back, 200 meter in front of the boat, we saw a humpback whale. The individual was traveling but we were able to see the impressive blow from the large cetacean.
A rainy day at sea, but the wildlife made it worth it!
- Mia Rasmussen
Birds species seen on today include: atlantic puffin, arctic tern, northern fulmar, common guillemot, black guillemot, eider duck, black-legged kittiwake, lesser blacked backed gull, northern gannet, storm petrel, arctic skua, manx sherwater
We are sailing out today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik. We will have some rain but we have inside and outside area on all of our boats and also provide warm overalls for you on the boats. Hope you will be able to join us today on our search for these magnificent animals in their natural environment.
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