Monday, 3 July 2023

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 Premium Whale tour and on our lovely vessel Eldey  and Hafsúla 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 | 12:00
• 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: The sun was shining and the weather and sea seemed calm with a bit of fresh wind. We had a fabulous view of the entire bay and all the cool mountains surrounding us. We sailed for a while until we spotted our first cetaceans, white-beaked dolphins! There were at least 4 individuals, they surfaced quickly and disappeared as quickly as they came. So we went in search of something else and also found that something else. It was a minke whale! This one came very close to the boat and surfaced right in front of us a couple of times so that we got a good look at this very cool animal. After we had lost this sneaky minke we saw one more pop up, never to be seen again so we sailed further out to find something bigger. And this we did, a big blow indicated a humpback whale it was quite far away so we made our way there but changed course for a second humpback much closer to us. This one surfaced very close to us as well multiple times and we got the full experience of hearing it exhale so close to us. After following it for some time we had run out of time and needed to make our way back home with the sun on our happy faces.

- Cindy Schwenk

Report from Hafsulan: Sunny day with minor swells. We spotted our first cetaceans quite early on in our tour. We headed towards flocks of birds and spotted 1 minke whale who surfaced around the bird and close by was a blow by another minke whale. Both these individuals were elusive and surface sequence short. We soon lost sight of them so decided to venture further out into the bay. A call came in notifying us of a humpback whale so we headed in that direction. On the way a pod 6-8 white beaked dolphins appeared in front and quite close to our boat. Within that pod was a baby calf. We stayed with them for about 10 minutes and as we were leaving they gave us a great show as they leaped out of the water, many at times, making big splashes as they landed back on the surface. We continued on with luck on our side cause the humpback whale was still in the area. It looked relaxed, not taking too long dives and we managed to see him surface 3 times with 2 flukes dives before we had to sail back to Reykjavik harbour. All in all a great tour with happy passengers.

-Kristín Rós

Report from Hafsula: The wind picked up a bit compared to the morning and there were some white-caps on the sea. One of the white splashes was a lot larger than the other white-caps, and we were delighted to find out that it was created by a breaching humpback whale! The individual breached several times when we were still at some distance, and when we came closer he or she calmed down a bit and surfaced regularly. In the meantime, some dolphins had responded to the sounds of the splashing whale and were also jumping. There were probably around 5 white-beaked dolphins in the area that we got to briefly see, but our attention was mostly focused on the humpback whale - especially when it came up within 50 meter of the boat! After this wonderful sighting we sailed back in a bit of a choppy sea towards sunny Reykjavik. 

- Eline van Aalderink

Report from eldey: Today we sailed from the harbour of Reykjavik, the wind was blowing quite hard but was amazing sunny day with almost no clouds. It was possible to see the entire peninsula of snæfellsnes and Reykjanes even the snaefellsjokull wich is a glacier and a volcano. The tour started slow with some difficulties to spot the animals, but the conditions were really nice so everyone was with high hopes to find them. After some minutes the minke whales started to appear, in total 4 minke whales were spotted and 1 of them did a half breach and was so close to the boat that we could see it under the water. After the minkes the big ones showed up, 2 humpback whales, one of this individual was doing what look like to be pectoral feeding creating a barrier with the massive pectoral fins for the fish not escape. Only looking to the animal is always difficult to be 100% about the animal behaviour can always be just having fun slapping in the water. Still was a very nice behaviour to see and all the passengers really enjoyed it. On the way back we still saw more 2 minke whales to finish the tour the best way possible.

- Rodrigo Silva

Report from Eldey : Tonight we started our sail with an amazing midnight sun and no cloud in the sky. It was though a bit windy out and also we had a few waves, we had warned all of our passengers of the state of the sea before the tour. As we sailed North we could observe the nice icelandic landscape of the bay around us like a really nice view on Esja, also Kelir and the Snaefellsjokull. We searched the area all along the trip for some cetaceans, searching also through areas where wez could see some sea birds, but unfortunately for us we did not get quite lucky on this tour and we did not spot any fin, or blow or splash. We searched until the very end but unfortunately we will not see anything, nature is how it is and the cetaceans do decide when they want to show up or not, nothing we can do about it they are wild animals after all ! Because of the lack of sightings we offered our passengers a complimentary ticket to come back and hopefully catch a glimpse of the nice wildlife we have here in the bay. Hopefully everyone will come back soon and soon some whales, dolphins or porpoises !

- Mélanie

Northern gannet, Arctic skua, Arctic tern, Atlantic puffin, Common guillemot, Northern fulmar, razorbill, black-legged kittiwake, eider duck, black guillemot, herring gull, black-backed gull, black-headed gull