Monday, 6 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 Hafsulan: beautiful day with a lot of visibility, although a bit cloudy and with some cold wind from the East. The sea was flat with some larger waves, but still infrequent and smaller than a meter. It wasn't late until we spotted the first humpback whale of the day, which was fluke diving really often after taking about two breaths each time. Afterwards, we saw two other humpbacks with a very similar behavior. It looked like they were either feeding or exploring the depths. It was great that they showed the fluke, hopefully we'll be able to identify them, in the future.

- Francesco Golin

Report from Elding : The swell was really light as we started to sail off. It was a nice and comfortable ride and did not take long before we spotted our first blow. A humpback whale was right there, 20 min from the harbour. We got some nice views of that individual, stopped a few minutes and eventually headed off to try to see more humpback whales in that area. We quickly spotted a second individual, more elusive this time, not staying that much at the surface of the water. In accordance with our code of conduct to respect the whale we decided to leave it alone and head off to hopefully see that 3rd individual that was in the area. 15 minutes later we spotted our 3rd individual humpback whale that ended up being our most beautiful sighting of the trip. That individual offered us a few magnificent fluke dives and surfaced a few times really calmly by the boat. After some time with that really relaxed and beautiful whale it was already time to head back to Reykjavik.

- Melanie Magnan

Report from Hafsúlan: This afternoon we completed the whale bingo! We had great encounters with each of our four most regular species. The tour started with a minke whale coming up right next to us, completely out of nowhere. We were very surprised to see that the minke whale was not alone, but accompanied by a much smaller individual! We don't often see minke whales in pairs in Faxaflói, and the size difference made us think that we were watching a very special moment with a mother and her young. Next we came across 3-4 fast surfacing harbour porpoises, but soon our attention was diverted to the blow of a humpback whale. This whale was surfacing calmly but not really showing us much of the fluke. When more boats started to arrive we went on to find our fourth species of the day: the white-beaked dolphins. There were about 7 individuals calmly surfacing, but often changing direction so after some beautiful moments we decided to explore different areas. As if the tour hadn't been amazing enough, showing us the diversity of cetaceans and vast differences between the toothed and the baleen whales, we then spotted enormous splashes towards Reykjavík. Here, a humpback whale was breaching! The individual breached repeatedly, lifting almost their full body out of the water countless times. After some time the individual calmed down and started rolling, slapping the beautifully marked pectoral fins, and then coming very close towards the boat. Words cannot describe how breathtaking this experience was, and what an ending to a spectacular day. 

- Eline van Aalderink 

Report from Elding: What a way to start the week! We set off with a tiny bit of rain that quickly disappeared. The light was beautiful ethereal and calm, just like the sea. After about half an hour we spotted our first cetacean: a humpback whale! It was pec-slapping a lot and was quite an experience. Then we heard of some minke whales, we quickly made our way over and saw two minke whales that were extremely calm. They can be quite tricky to spot and keep track off but these two were very curious and came close to the boat a few times. It was a very rare and special moment. As we did not want to over-stay our welcome, we continued on our journey and very quickly found a pod of white beaked dolphins! A pod of 10 were feeding and playing, very cool to see with the backdrop of Reykjavik. After a successful tour and no time left we ventured back home, happy faces all around.

- Anna Richter

Report from Hafsulan: another cloudy trip with slight occasional rain but with extremely calm sea and little wind, at least at the beginning. We sailed towards the same spot in which we saw the humpback whale breaching during the 1 o'clock tour only to find there an minke whale chilling there, resurfacing very often to breathe. We hanged out with this minke for a while, to then move on to find a humpback whale, which was lunge feeding and had several arctic terns, gulls, kittiwakes and fulmar flying around its head. After leaving this one by itself again we found two other humpback whales, one of which it was surrounded by a pod of white-beaked dolphins. These two species were hanging out really close to each other, and they didn't seem to mind each other's presence. looking quite playful instead - with the whale swimming on the side or with the snout raised, and the dolphins doing small leaps and jumps around the humpback. Returning back, the wind from the south picked up quite a bit, cooling down the people in the open deck, but it was still bearable. As a cherry on top of the cake, we had a quick sighting of a single harbor porpoise, which completed out checklist of species.

- Francesco Golin

blacked legged kittiwakes, northern fulmars, atlantic puffins, common guillemot, eider ducks, arctic terns, lesser and greater black backed gull, northern gannet