Saturday, 24 June 2023

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 14:00, 16:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey and Elding for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00, 17:00 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
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 16:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 20:30

Report from Eldey: We had a very calm morning at the sea today, beginning with a light rain and ending with a shiny Icelandic sun on our faces. On the way to the area we mostly see the whales, we saw many Atlantic puffins on the way, when we spotted our first species of the day: a pod of about 12 white-beaked dolphins was travelling around and decided to say hello by coming close to our boat! We stayed with them for a while, seeing them performing very high jumps out of the water. An incredible sighting of the dolphins for sure, since they were showing off their acrobatic skills. As more boats started to come, we decided to leave this group and checked the area for different species. A passenger spotted something a bit far away and we got to see a minke whale coming close and then going a bit away from us. But it wasn't the only individual in the area: we had another 2 minkes around, close to a flock of birds. On the way back, we spotted a pod of 2 harbour porpoises and we enjoyed the sunny rest of the tour as we get closer to Reykjavik.

- Milla Brandao

Report from Elding: We sailed out this morning with the wind in our backs making the way out fairly warm! After about an hour of sailing we spotted a blow in the distance! As we got closer we saw it was a humpback whale! This seemed to be a bit of a tricky individual and as a lot of boats joined us, we headed further into faxa floi. Not long after we were joined by a pod of white beaked dolphins! They were jumping in the distance but calmed down once we arrived and focused back on feeding. When the other boats left, they had a change of heart again and started jumping all around and even did full flips in the air! When the dolphins headed on as did we and tried our luck again with the humpback whale. This time it was still a little tricky but did show us its fluke twice! There was even a surprise minke whale in the same direction. As we did wait a while for the humpback to resurface we ran out of time and headed back to the harbour. 

- Anna Richter 

Report from Eldey: We headed out under a cloudy sky but on calm seas. It took quite a while to find cetaceans but we passed by many Atlantic puffins which excited everyone. We then had 3 white beaked dolphins that suddenly appeared on our right. They were milling where they moved very slowly in random directions. We then carried on and straight ahead a minke whale surfaced. Another 3 then also appeared around us. These all proved to be quite elusive so we carried on. We then had dolphins on either side now jumping out the water creating big splashes. We carried on though as we had seen a blow and fluke very far in the distance but unfortunately this animal (likely a humpback) never showed itself again. But in this area we did find many seabirds feeding. They were joined by another 8 minke whales. 2 of these came incredibly close to our boat, we could even see the white stripe on their pectoral fins which is very rare. It was amazing! Another 3 dolphins were also now seen. We then headed back after a great tour.

- Rob Hyman

Report from Elding: The bay was calm and cloudy as we went out in time from the harbour. A bit of a breeze and rain followed us through out the tour. We had to wait until we got far out into the bay until we saw our first cetacean. AWe saw 2 harbour porpoises first, and soon enough we saw minke whales in the distance. Throughout the tour the minkes surfaced all around us and we where lucky enough to get really close to some of them. In total we saw 10 minke whales. After a while we decided to try to look for something bigger and through our search we got white beaked dolphins appearing somewhat scattered. We saw one pod of 3 dolphins and one pod of 7, the last pod also being very active and doing jumps all around. Finally after spotting several humpback blows in the distance, we got close enough the witness a beautiful fluke dive of a humpback whale, giving us a nice ending to the tour. 

- Ludvig Hultgren Svensson

Report from Eldey: under a light rain we sailed out to our adventure this afternoon. Within 40min of the trip, we saw a minke whale in front of us, passing by. We saw it a couple of times more, but we had our attention on other dorsal fins not far from the area. We had a pod of 8 white-beaked dolphins, calmly swimming and milling and we got to have close looks of them when they came closer. While we were enjoying these dolphins, we spotted a blow a bit far from us, from something way bigger. Getting closer to it, we got to see at least 2 more minke whales. We saw the blow again and we realized we had a humpback whale next to us. However, this humpback was staying over 10 minutes underwater, in which is not common to see this in this bay, and we were running out of time, so we needed to start heading back to Reykjavik. A very calm tour on a very chill sea indeed!

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: There is no more darkness in Iceland at the moment as the sun does set, but it stays close to the horizon and therefore stays light all night. This evening however it was a little gloomy as it had been raining, but that didnt stop us and we set sail on our adventure. Very quickly after setting sail, we saw 3 harbour porpoises but they quickly vanished again. This would become the theme of the tour seeing roughly 8 more. There was even one little pod that stayed with us a few moments which is always exciting for us as that does not happen often. After our first porpoise sighting we headed on and saw a minke whale. This was just the first one of many, as like the porpoises they were with us all tour. Its hard to say how many we saw in total, but we would estimate 10-12 minke whales with some individuals coming fairly close to the boat. As we were enjoying the minke whales we were joined by a pod of 6 white beaked dolphins! This was a really active pod swimming closely to the boat and jumping out of the water, bringing us a lot of joy on our midnight tour. After some time we continued with our journey and tried to find a bigger species further in the bay. We did see a blow a few times but every time we tried to investigate who caused the blow it would disappear. After some more searching we head to head back to harbour as we ran out of time, seeing more minke whales and 3 more harbour porpoises on the way.

- Melanie Magnan and Anna Richter

Atlantic puffins, Arctic tern, great black backed gull, lesser black backed gull, Northern fulmar, Northern gannet, common guillemot, black guillemot, razorbill, black legged kittiwake, black headed gull, eider duck, shell duck, Arctic skua