Wednesday, 20 July 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 11:00 and 14:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 20:30 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 | 11:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 20:30

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.

Report from Eldey: Glorious sunshine and a sparkling sea is what we we sail on this morning. It was a little windy so small wavelets but excellent visibility. We spotted a few flocks of birds on the horizon and decided to investigate. Like detectives, our hunch was right - we found a minke whale lunge feeding! What a special sight. As we were watching this feeding minke whale, we saw another blow on our right! We watch the minke whale a little longer before following the blow an finding a humpack whale! Just as we arrive it was tail slapping! What a display. It seems all the cetaceans are eager to give us a show today. The humpback quickly went for a fluke dive. We saw it a few more times before being distracted by another minke whale! We managed to see both quite closely which was truly magical. In total we saw 3 minke whales ad 2 humpbacks. 

- Anna Richter

Report from Hafsúlan: The sun was shining brightly this morning, so despite the northerly wind we had a relatively warm day out at sea (warm for Icelandic standards). The first area where we stopped turned out to be a true whale hotspot, with two minke whales and a humpback whale feeding! The minke whales surfaced close to our boat but as they were very fast we focused our attention on the humpback whale. From the distance we had seen this individual peduncle throwing, but when we got closer the whale was surfacing calmly before showing us their fluke and going for approximately 7 minute dives. We enjoyed seeing the impressive fluke many times before we wanted to check out an area with over 100 sea birds. No cetacean was to be seen among the birds, but a bit further on we caught a quick glimpse of another minke whale. When it was time to head back to Reykjavík, we all enjoyed the sunshine and lensing back to the harbour with beautiful views of the landscape around us.

- Melanie Magnan

Report from Elding: It was a very sunny afternoon on Faxafloi bay. The wind picked up a bit but the sea was still quite pleasant and everyone felt quite comfortable. We headed to the same area than this morning and saw a blow in the distance. We approached the area and started seeing at least 3 different minke whales in the area. Then from far a humpback whale breached in the distance, at least 4 times leaping completely out of the water and falling in big splashes! We started going there when we crossed a pod of 3-4 white-beaked dolphins, but we really wanted to go see the active humpback so we continued.  We arrived closer and the humpback was on its back, slapping the water with its tail, then a little bit with the pectoral fin. After that the whale was going for short dives, coming for a couple of breaths and going for a dive. We stayed a while with it until we decided to go see 3-4 minke whales further away, one came super close on the left side of the boat! We observed those minkes probably feeding and went a little bit further to see a group of 8-10 white-beaked dolphins being active as well with some jumps and splashes. They came very close for a few minutes, even under the boat so we could see them perfectly. We had to leave because we were out of time enjoying the nice sun and beautiful views on the landscape.

- Miquel Pons

Report from Eldey: The sun is still out as we start with our afternoon sail. We sailed out to an area we had seen some whales in the morning, and as we got closer to that hotspot we got lucky to have a glimpse of 2 minke whales! They did not stay with us for long, probably more occupied feeding rather than staying around our vessel. That is when we noticed a blow quite close to our ship, it was a humpback whale ! This humpback whale appeared really  close to our left side and did for us a beautiful peduncle throw barely 10 meters from the boat. Then we got to observe that individual rest on the surface for some time, and a few surfacing really close to us. During that sighting we even got another minke whale approaching us. We then turned around to head back to Reykjavik and got lucky enough to have another species join us: a pod of about 5 harbour porpoises that decided to show up at the bow for a few moment. Definitely some great sightings for this trip, and even the few sea sick passengers got to enjoy close views of the animals.

- Eline van Aalderink

 

Atlantic puffin, common guillemot, black guillemot, lesser and greater black backed gulls, Arctic tern, northern fulmar, Manx shearwater, sooty shearwater, European storm petrel, Arctic skua, great skua, herring gull, black-legged kittiwake, northern gannet, eider duck