Monday, 12 September 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our  14:00 Premium Whale tour and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 13:00 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
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• 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 Eldey: Very average sea conditions today, not flat but not too many white caps either, so I was feeling confident that I would be able to find something in the wilderness of the sea. After a small issue with our microphone I was back and ready to find some animals when our captain Otto spotted some white beaked dolphins! These dolphins were rather friendly today, and came right up to us to play with our boat, bow riding and the 2 juveniles fully leaping out of the water, leaving the 3 adults in their wake. During this dolphin extravaganza we saw a minke whale in the distance underneath some diving northern gannets, and after spending a bunch of time with the dolphins we decided to give them a break and go minke hunting. We found them rather quickly, big splashes on the waters surface from a breach and some lunge feeding, but the animals were shy today and didn't spend too much time on the water's surface for us to view. After a couple quick peeks of these small whales we sadly ran out of time and began heading home, saying goodbye to the 4 minke whales that were around us, before a 5th appeared and disappeared just a quickly on the way home.

- Liam van Walsum

Report from Eldey: The weather was relatively flat except for a short swell, so good conditions to find some animals. On our way out we had a biref but very cute encounter of some harbour porpoises. They are always busy feeding so quickly vanished below again. We continued our search underneath a large amount of diving northern gannets and guillemots yet couldn't find any whales when suddenly we saw some splashes on the horizon. Approaching the animals we discovered they were white beaked dolphins! They saw us and approached, playing with our boat a good 30 minutes. We realised there were 2 calves, one of which still have foetal folds, when they kept jumping out of the water for us, even the adults joined in! The 14-16 dolphins stuck together the entire time, bowriding and travelling under our boat giving us a side-eye. Sadly however we did have to leave these magically creatures as due to that short swell we had many people feeling a little uneasy onboard, and we began to head back to Reykjavik to steady the boat for everyone's comfort. 

- Anna aka "Double agent"

Northern gannet, northern fulmer, common guillemot, black guillemot, glaucus gull, Iceland gull, Max shearwater, sooty shearwater, storm petrel