Thursday, 2 June 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, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 17:00 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
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 12:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00

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 Hafsúlan: The tour started with perfect sea conditions under an overcast sky. While sailing out of the harbour we could spot a small pod of around 5 well named harbour porpoises, but we did not stop for them as they quickly disappeared after being spotted. The big deal decided to show up a little bit later. A single juvenile humpback whale that remained fairly elusive but we were able to follow it as it travelled towards Keflavik. It surfaced and dived on at least 4 different occasions letting our passengers on top-deck a chance to catch it's dark back and in that case squared-shaped dorsal fin. We begun to head home towards Reykjavik and were surprised to discover a glimpse of ~3 harbour porpoises. It was a pleasure to see the harbour porpoises and that magnificent humpback whale in Faxa bay!

- Estel Sanchez

Report from Hafsulan : The swell had increased a bit from the morning, and the sky was overcast. We took about an hour to come back to the area where we had found a whale during the morning tour. As we were navigating a blow appeared 600m away on our right side. It was a humpback whale, identified as Liney, at first the whale was quite elusive, but then quickly became extremely playful and started to breach numerous times. Breached a good 5 times to more, leaving us with an amazed look on our faces. As if the sighting was not good enough, Liney came directly to the boat blowing bubbles right by us and circling the boat a few times while rolling on its side. After some time of seeing that beautiful hunpback whale interacting with us, we left to respect our code of conduct, with the memory of a really rare and unique behavior to see from those animals.

- Melanie Magnan

Report from Elding: Today we had a whale of a time! We ventured out into the wind to find cetaceans and found a humpback whale! This was a very relaxed individual that was travelling fast. As it was leaving us, we saw more blow in the distance and decided to follow. This humpback whale was a very active one, showing us its fluke and even breaching! We all felt humbled and as time was up we made our way back to the harbour. On the return journey we were still seeing blows and even another humpback breaching in the distance. What a day!

- Anna Richter

Report from Hafsúlan: On the afternoon tour we had cloudy skies, rocky seas and strong winds that were blowing in our faces. We had to search for a rather long time in these unfavourable conditions, but finally spotted our first humpback whale. However, this individual seemt to be wanting to be left alone and not bothered by whale watching vessels so it was a good opportunity to search the rest of the bay and enjoy the birdlife and the landscape. Two other humpback whales were seen at the distance! They were swimming quite close to each other, probably about 400 meters. As we were approaching to that area we saw one of them breaching out of the water!! What a show! After that it started swimming erratically, fast and constantly changing direction, probably looking for food. It was a pretty good guess as we could see how it was making some bubbles and soon after we saw it lunge feeding. The other whale was pretty close but we decided to enjoy the presence of this individual. And it was a great idea as eventually it surfaced just a few meters away from our boat allowing us to see its large airplaned-winged shaped flippers. It was a nice afternoon that we spent with these sentient mammals and we enjoyed every second of it.

- Estel Sanchez

Report from Elding: the day started out great with some cloudy sky, but none of the fog that covered the sea during the days before. The temperature was lower than the days before, with wind coming from southwest that made it hard to stay on the outer decks without an overall for the whole trip. The sea, however, was relatively calm, although the trip got rockier as we sailed out of the safety of Seltjarnarnes cape. We sailed towards the same spot where, in the days before, we saw a humpback whale which has always been very comfortable around ships. And there it was again, resting peacefully at the surface of the ocean, possibly napping. We decided to leave this one in peace and direct the ship towards a second one, a kilometre away. We received reports from other ships that it was continuously breaching, and we were able to see some of its flamboyant behaviour while we were sailing towards the spot: it was doing "baby' breaches, slapping the water surface with the pectoral fin, and showing the fluke a lot. Once we arrived it appeared to have calmed down, only to breach again RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SHIP. It was so close we felt like we could pat it on the head. Crazy day.

- Francesco Golin