Monday, 9 May

Today we will be operating 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: This morning we had beautiful weather, an unusually sunny day in Iceland. We sailed into the bay looking for wildlife and after 30 minutes we saw our first species - a minke whale! This individual was moving quite fast through the water and surfacing often. We saw its head rise above the surface a couple of times, showing us its white chin. After a few sightings, the minke went for a long, deeper dive so we left it to enjoy its breakfast. A few minutes after leaving the minke, we spotted a back surfacing in the distance. This was the second species of the tour, a humpback whale! This humpback was a dream to watch, coming to the surface often and showing us its tail. We watched it for a while and then saw that there were two other humpbacks with another whale watching boat and one of them was breaching! We headed over so we could watch it too. As we approached it continued to breach. Once we were closer, the individual had calmed down but we were able to watch it logging at the surface, recovering from using so much energy. At one point it just lay at the surface directly in front of our boat about 50 meters away. Soon our time started to run out and we had to head back to the harbour but we had the sun on our faces and memories of these amazing encounters. 

- Emily Erskine

Report from RIBs: What an amazing start of the day!!! We started the tour with our usual stop at island Akurey, one of the places where Atlantic Puffins breed and lay eggs. It was amazing today! The sea was perfectly almost glassy calm and numerous Puffins were resting at the sea surface and walking on the island. We approached them very slowly and ended up surrounded by these beautiful impressive birds. Out in the bay, we headed out to the area where we heard there are humpback whales. First we saw 2 humpback whales next to each other, so close they appeared to be touching. First they were very slowly swimming and then logging at the surface, barely moving. One was fluking up more often then the other when they would go for a deeper dive. Since there was already other boat watching  the same whales, we headed to see another individual few hundred meters away. This one came very close to our boat, so we saw its white pectoral fins under the sea surface as well as "humps" on its head when it spy hopped. At one moment, while waiting it to surface up, we saw another individual in a distance rising its fluke high up in the air very nicely. Since few boats came in the area, we left to see another individual we spotted resting at the surface. On the way to it, we spotted a group of 3-4 white-beaked dolphins. We turned towards them and had a nice close encounter with these beautiful species. The dolphins soon turned and headed towards the resting humpback. We made a joke "go, wake up sleeping humpback", and like they heard us, that's what happened :) Soon, we were watching the show of humpback rolling over its back, rising its fluke and pectoral fins high in the air and dolphins playing around it.  The sea was calm and sun was shining. What an amazing tour!

- Tena Sarcevic

Report from Eldey: What a beautiful afternoon we had today! It was sunny and there was not that much wind so sailing was pleasant and the views on the landscape amazing. It was easy to spot the whale with the flat sea. In total we found 4-5 humpback whales and 2-3 minke whales. We first spotted a tail from far waya and when we approached the area we started seeing blows and tails everywhere. We focused on a whale and could see it coming close to our boat showing us its tail while going for a dive. A few seconds later another humpback whale appeared in the same area but when we saw the tail it was clearly not the same. We stayed a bit then went to a pair of humpback that was slowly moving toward the west. We could also see those 2 humpback whales going for deep dives showing us their fluke. When they came back they were logging, still moving but very close to the surface for a while. As other boats were approaching we moved to another area closer to Hvalfjordur were many flocks of birds were. We spotted here and there minke whales but they were very difficult to see. We were out of time so we went back to the harbour, crossing a little pod of 2-4 harbour porpoises that quickly disappeared.

- Miquel Pons

Report from the RIBs: On our afternoon tour, the sea was still quite calm and sun was shining. After our stop at Puffin island, we headed out to the ocean. First we stopped as we spotted a big fluke print, indicating there is a whale in the area. We waited it for a bit, but as it took awhile, we headed further out. We stopped at the area where other bigger boats were already watching 2 humpback whales. Since few of the boats left, we stayed watching these individuals slowly travelling and fluking up when going for a deeper dive. The dives started to last longer so after some time watching them, we headed to another 2 individuals of humpbacks, approximately 400 meters away. Those two were one next to each other, peacefully logging at the sea surface and fluking up just in front of our boat! On the way back, we made a stop at the area where we spotted a lot of Arctic terns, Fulmars and Puffins feeding. We continued our way, since we haven't seen cetaceans. Soon we were pleasantly surprised by a group of 4-6 harbour porpoises which rapidly passed by just next to our boat. Although it was short encounter, we all managed to see these cute cetaceans. We turned our engine off, hoping we would see them again, and soon saw them surfacing a dozen of meters away. We tried to approach them slowly. Haven't managed, but on the way spotted another humpback whale together with plenty of marine birds! It was probably the same individual we were waiting to see at the very beginning of our tour, since the fluke print we saw was at the exact same area. We finished the tour with a fun ride and big smiles on our faces! What a great day!

- Tena Sarcevic

Atlantic puffin, northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, black-backed gull, black-headed gull, herring gull, glaucus gull, arctic tern, eider duck, black guillemot, common guillemot, European shag, Brent geese, Arctic skua