Sunday, 18 July 2021

Sunday, 18 July 2021

✔ CLASSIC WHALE TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 09:00 

Report from Elding and Eldey : We sailed out this morning with two boats, we had little to no wind but overcast and drizzly conditions. It was actually perfect for spotting cetaceans today. Elding travelled north whilst Eldey travelled more south but we roughly saw the same sightings. The birdlife was incredible; gannets, fulmars, seagulls, skuas, puffins, guillemots were everywhere. Minke whales were the whales to see around these birds and we must have seen at least 5 different minke whales during the whole tour. One of which we saw using bubbles in its feeding under a flock of birds. We got some lovely photographs of that individual also as it surfaced so many times. After leaving this minke we saw something very strange in the distance, we had to go check it out and on closer inspection we saw that it was a dead emaciated sperm whale. Very sad but also a very interesting sight. It was a quick look before we headed to a humpback whale we were told about nearby. This whale was fantastic, flipper slapping and showing off to the onboard passengers. It was the perfect end to a great tour but by this point we were getting cold so we warmed up inside and had a nice hot chocolate.

- Megan Whittaker

✔ PREMIUM WHALE TOUR  ON SCHEDULE | 10:00

Report from Þruma RIB: The sky was overcast but the sea silk smooth with a bit of a swell this morning, making for a mysterious setting. With a stop at Engey to observe the puffins, we went into the bay to find us some cetaceans. At first, we found a humpback whale. The whale was incredibly calm and resting close to the surface, not giving us the humpback-typical beautiful fluke dives. Therefore, we decided to move on to other things, and just as we turned, the humpback breached behind us – that's life sometimes! As we were sailing around the area, we found a dead sperm whale floating in the bay, clearly very decayed and a long time had passed since it died. We found a pod of 4-5 very inquisitive white-beaked dolphins, and they played around the boat for a bit before we went back into the humpback region. There, we found 2-3 humpback whales, one of them probably the same as earlier in the tour. We wandered between them for a while before we unfortunately had to conclude this very good morning tour.

- Fróði Guðmundur Jónsson

✔ CLASSIC WHALE TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 13:00

Report from Elding: We had flat seas and really good visibility for most part of the trip. It did not take us long to find the first cetaceans of the day. After 20 minutes sailing we saw a couple of habour porpoises. We kept sailing and after 30 minutes we found our first humpback whale a few times surfacing and leaving people in awe. We kept going and found a travelling minke whale, somehow friendly towards us. Keep in mind that these animals have been hunted for some years now in the bay. After a while we found another humpback whale this one closer to us and performing some feeding on the surface. Pretty impressive to look at. We could even see its white coloured pectoral fins through the water. As we were looking at the humpback whale and going alongside this beautiful animal a 5-6 pod of white beaked dolphins came to the bow of the boat and started swimming around us. It was such an intimate moment with these animals. They remained interested and playful leaving no sign of evasion behind. Unfortunately we were running out of time and had to leave them. We came across a third humpback whale performing lunge feeding right in front of us. We stayed with it for some time too and slowly we head back to Reykjavik. It was such a good tour.
 

- Jorge Pascual

✔ PREMIUM WHALE TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 14:00 

Report from Þruma RIB: The weather was the same as in the morning, but if anything the sea was calmer. As we were observing the puffins, we heard from a captain of one of our other boats that they had seen orcas (killer whales)! They are extremely rare in Faxaflói bay so we headed straight out to the spot, along with other boats in the area. Unfortunately, they were not seen again. A pod of about 5 harbour porpoises were spotted and they were surprisingly calm, staying close to the boat but these small cetaceans usefully swim away pretty quickly. We also found a pod of 3-4 white-beaked dolphins, who were very friendly and playful, jumping around the boat. We went and looked at the dead sperm whale that we found in the morning, and then went to look for humpbacks. We found at least 3 humpback whales, maybe even 4! They were rather close to each other, but their activity level varied. Some of them were quite calm, the others were moving fast and unpredictable in their surfacing behaviour. We ended the tour by seeing the most active humpback whale lunge feed straight into a flock of seagulls – a very cool sight!

- Fróði Guðmundur Jónsson

✔ CLASSIC WHALE TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 17:00 

Report from Elding II : It was a lovely evening tour with a calm and flat sea. With this type of weather it is generally easy to spot the whales and we did find whales. We started with a minke whale. The animal was feeding and we saw it surfacing a few times before we continue further north. We found the same good spot than this afternoon with 3 humpback whales, a few minke whales and 5-7 white beaked dolphins. We could observe well one humpback whale that was resting, staying close to the surface and moving slowly. We also saw blow from other humpbacks from faraway as well as a fluke dive. There was permanently minke whales surfacing around us while we were with the humpback. The dolphins stayed far from the boat, some of those beautiful cetaceans were porpoising, probably busy feeding in this rich area. We came back a had a quick stop in Engey to observe the adorable puffins breeding there.

- Miquel Pons

✔ MIDNIGHT WHALE TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 20:30 

Report from Elding: It was a very chilly evening in the bay even though there was barely any wind. Just the movement of the boat was enough to make most people head inside and put on one of our warm overalls. We had a great tour with a tail-slapping humpback whale, which also breached  (jumped out of the water) once too. Seemed like it was communicating with something (not us), maybe the white-beaked dolphins that were in abundance this evening, it was hard to know how many there were as it was quite difficult to approach them but perhaps about 20 or so very scattered individuals. They too were very busy leaping out of the water and causing a lot of splashes but like the humpback whale it was a few hundred meters from the boat and stopped as we approached. We did however get quite close to about 3 different minke whales which was nice and passengers were also curious about the dead sperm whale in the bay so we also went to check that out also. On the way home we listened to some music and grabbed ourselves a nice warm drink. Brrrrrr!

- Megan Whittaker

Bird Species ID´d today: Northern Gannet, Atlantic Puffin, Common Guillemot, Arctic tern, Arctic skua, Great Skua, Northern Fulmar, Kittiwake, Eider Duck, Greater-black backed gull, Lesser black-backed gull, Herring gull.

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 Premium tour and our lovely vessel Elding for the 09:00 and 13:00 Classic tour. Make sure to dress appropriately for the tours as it is always colder on sea than on land. Join us by booking online or contact us directly for more information (elding@elding.is / +354 519 5000).

COVID-19: Keep in mind that passengers and crew are asked to ensure their own hygiene and safety at all times. Washing hands thoroughly with soap and using a hand sanitiser is advised. Masks are not mandatory but are recommended in areas where keeping distance from others is not possible.