Wednesday, 14 September 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 and 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: Today we can feel that winter is coming in Iceland, the air feels really cold even though we only have a really light breeze. We started our sail under a tiny bit of sun (sunlight is something you come to cherish after you live in Iceland long enough). Today there is a bit of swell from the West but not much white caps which will make it easy to see everything we have around the bay as we navigate. After some time we ended up in minke territory, which means feeding northern gannets were seen in the area and a few minke whales' fins also appeared. Probably a few minke whales were seen, at least 2 from a distance, but we believe much more in the area. Then a few white beaked dolphins were spotted, a pod of 5 to 6, that passed by us really elusively looking busy feeding. Going around the area we spotted a few more fins of minke whales, probably another 2. But what made our trip great was our last pod of white beaked dolphins, a pod of about 5 individuals, that came to our vessel to bow ride and jump around it for a few minutes. After this really nice sight we made our way back to Reykjavik.

- Windy Cindy 

Report from Eldey: The weather looked incredibly beautiful with sunshine and clear skies, accompanied by a cold wind from the North, which made us feel in our bones that winter is coming. The swell was quite high, rocking the boat a bit back and forth, making this a real whale finding adventure. After sailing across the bay for some time we caught a glimpse of our first whales, two minke whales. These animals were quite elusive so we did not stay long with them but got lucky soon enough with a lot of minkes and some white beaked dolphins appearing out of nowhere all around us. It must have been about 5 or 6 individual minkes and two pods of 2 dolphins. We admired these animals for some time until we spotted a big blow with some other boats and made our way there. This turned out to be a humpback whale! Followed by 2 jumping dolphins. We had just about time to see it fluke up and go for a deep dive once before we had to head back home under clear blue skies towards Reykjavík.

- Melanie Magnan 

Report from Eldey: Beautiful sunshine and clear blue skies is what we sailed out into during our last whale watching tour of the day. The wind was quite strong coming from the north with quite high swell making the boat a bit more rocky. After being in the bay for some time, we started to spot our first whales with a lot of blows. Around 6 minke whales were in the area, some a bit further away and at least 2 individuals were seen very close to us. A few minutes later we saw around 4 harbour porpoises very close to us in front of our boat. They are very tricky to see though as there were several white caps and these animals are very small. We kept seeing few more blows from minke whales and then we encoutered a pod of dolphins, around 3 individuals. We saw a big splash in the distance so we made our way over top figure out what species it was. Whatever it was, it stopped jumpung but we then we spotted another pod of 5 white beaked dolphins doing several jumps much closer to us! Other individual of minke whale was also close by. As we turned back we saw 3 more jumping dolphins close to the boat, the sunset was shining on them and Rekjavik, giving both an orange hue.
 
-Anna RichtAH!

Northern Fulmar, Northern gannet, Common guillemot, black legged kittiwakes, manx shearwater, European shag