Tuesday, 22 November 2022

  Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00 and 13:00 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 | 13:00

  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 sanitizer is advised. 

Report from Eldey:  Another day with chilly easterly winds of about 8-14m/s, its also getting darker in the mornings and it took about 45mins for the sun to come high enough creating breathtaking sunrise colours to the sky. We headed straight for the area we were successful yesterday and passengers started to point towards large splashes in the north, at least 5 splashes at the same time in a row, this must be white-beaked dolphins, probably 5-7 individuals but hard to see from such a distance away. Once within a few 100m the splashing stopped and 2-3 young, curious individuals started to bow ride and play under and around the boat. After a nice encounter we went searching for other life and soon saw a big bushy blow, a humpback whale that popped up. It was mainly blows we were seeing and then suddenly a big splash to the south, another humpback whale. We decided to wait for the one we were closest too and he/she surfaced after 7mins. Once again it was about 150m away and only really the blow was visible. We tried waiting again and a stealthy minke whale popped up 100m away, but that was all we saw of the minke. A very sneaky individual. After a lot of patience and persistance a head one nice surfacing sequence of a humpback just 50m away, allowing us to see the body and fluke (tail). A fantastic ending to a chilly winter tour.

- Megan Whittaker

Report from Eldey: We set off into the cold Icelandic winds hopeful of finding more cetaceans after the success this morning. The sea wasn't too choppy throughout which was an added bonus! Within about fifteen minutes of the tour we were greeted by two harbour porpoises! They leaped out of the water less than fifty metres from the boat straight in front of us. We then watched them travel the left of our boat into the sun glare before this elusive species disappeared. We ventured further out and were greeted by many blows. We had found a humpback whale! This individual was proving difficult surfacing randomly and not for very long so we decided to follow another blow. Here we found two humpback whales. It seemed all humpback whales we encountered today had no interest in our boat and just wanted to come to the surface for a few breaths before heading back down into the sea. Everytime we did see the individuals it was amazing to get a look at such a beautiful species. In total there were 7-9 humpback whales with many blows in all directions!
- Rob Hyman

Common guillemot, European shag, Great cormorant, northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, black-headed gull, black-backed gull, glaucous gull,  eider duck.