Sunday, 8 May 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 12:00 and 14:00 Premium Whale tour and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00 and 13:00 Classic Whale Watching tours. Make sure to dress appropriately for the tours as it is always colder on sea than on land

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 12:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00

 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.

Report from Eldey - The wind that we had the last days has finally calmed down and allowed us to sail on calm seas with a really light swell today. The sailing was really enjoyable, and a lot of passengers stayed outside on the top deck, without the need of an overall to keep warm. We got to observe really fast a pod of 6 to 10 harbour porpoises in the first 30 minutes of the trip. As they are quite elusive, usually avoiding the boat, the left the area as fast as they arrive. But after an hour of sailing we got a glimpse of a blow in the distance, by the size of the blow and the shape of the dorsal we concluded that it was most likely a humpback whale. By getting closer, the species was confirmed, it was indeed a humpback whale. We saw the whale a few times surfacing and showing its back arking as it went for deeper dives. The real amazement came when we saw the animal surfacing less than a meter away from the boat, letting us have a really nice look. We stayed a bit more in the area and then sailed off to see if we found more animals. As we did not spot more cetacean we slowly got back toward the harbour.

- Melanie Magnan

Report from RIBs: On our first tour of the day, we saw a humpback whale. Long dives and schools of fish seen on fish finder indicated the individual was feeding. The dives of the animal lasted approximately 10 minutes, after which it would surfaced at sometimes unpredictable position. Although the animal was busy feeding, we managed to have a look at its blows and long back for few times. After the encounter with the humpback, we tried to find other species, but haven't had luck. The sea was choppy making the spotting conditions a bit more difficult. 

-Tena Sarcevic

Report from the Ribs: The easterly wind eased slightly for the midday tour but still blew briskly. We searched the area far and wide looking for any signs of the whales from the mornings tour but were unlucky in our endeavours. We zig-zagged our way through our key areas and tried our best but had to return home without the whales being seen. Complimentary tickets were issued.

- Mike Smith

Report from Eldey: We started with the east wind in our back so the way out was not cold this afternoon. We headed to the same area than this morning to see if we could spot the humpback whale from this morning. A bit before arriving to the area we found a group of 4-5 harbour porpoises on our left. As usual they quickly disappeared. After a bit a patience we spotted a blow and the back of the humpback whale from far away. It went for a long dive of around 10 minutes before it came for a very short couple of breaths and went under the surface again. The animal was a bit challenging to approach but slowly we got closer each time we were seeing the blows until we could see it well, with the white pectoral fins visible under the surface. We stayed a while and when there was too many boats we went to find something else. Only 15 minutes later we spotted another humpback whale ! We waited a bit and cwe saw it again. This one was going for beautiful fluke dives, showing us its white tail. Beautiful. We stayed for a few dives and went back to Reykjavik with fulmars playing in the wind.

- Miquel Pons

Report from the RIBs: On our last tour of the day, we first encountered a harbour porpoise. It quickly passed in front of our boat before we lost the sight of it. After that we encountered a humpback whale. It seemed to be the same individual from our morning tour. Still busy feeding, but we had enough time to see this individual's blows & swimming under the surface. Few times it surfaced quite close to our boat, so we could even see its white pectoral fins under the surface. As it was displaying long dives, we moved to another humpback whale just couple of hundred meters away. This individual fluked up few times, so had a really nice display of its beautiful white pattern under the flukes (under the tail). 

- Tena Sarcevic

Atlantic puffin, northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, black-backed gull, black-headed gull, glaucus gull, arctic tern, eider duck, black guillemot, common guillemot.