Sunday, 9 July 2023

 Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tour 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
• 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 bright and the sea was a mirror. Just lovely weather. We sailed out and not very far out we found our first cetaceans. It was a small pod of harbour porpoises coming to the surface to greet us. usually these creatures are very shy and elusive but today thanks to the very good sea conditions we got to have a very good look at them. A tiny bit further we spotted even more porpoises amongst some minke whales! We admired them for a few minutes until we moved on in search of something bigger. And that we did find! On the horizon blow and backs started to come up and also some smaller dorsal fins indicating multiple humpback whales and a pod of white-beaked dolphins! As we got closer we saw many of the humpbacks fluke up and counted between 8-10 animals. We followed about 4 of the closely and one of them even waved at us with its white pectortal fin. Another had a nice snack and came up to lunge feed and again another one came so close to our boat! So many cool behaviours and animals all together. The pod of dolphins (about 10 animals) was also coming up occasionally, annoying a humpback and some individuals even jumped out of the water. On our way back we encountered even more porpoises, so this tour was truly a lottery win!

- Cindy Schwenk

Report from Hafsúlan: The sun was shining on our faces and the weak wind meant no one took an overall this morning! We headed slowly to the area most of the boats were, giving them time to enjoy the whales and leave before we get there, to not overcrowd the animals. However, they were all spread out, because we had at least 6 humpback whales in the area! They were all feeding, and the amount of Arctic terns giving away their position made our job way easier. We could just follow the birds and wait for these whales to come up. Some whales were rolling on the surface, and then going for deeper dives to take all the goodies underwater. In the meantime, 2 minke whales were spotted in the distance, but they didn't join the party, so we kept focusing on the humpbacks. We had close encounters with two of them, and we could hear the loud and glorious blow a few meters from our boat. We suddenly realized we had a big school of fish right next to us, and the sunlight helped us to see how many sand eels we had. What a great spot! We turned off the engines and enjoyed nature around us, taking pictures and taking the most from this Icelandic summer with no wind. What a joyful morning it was!

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: This Sunday afternoon really was something special. We sailed out with very little wind and sunshine still going strong. We sailed out and after only 35min a humpback whale suddenly appeared about 100m from the boat. It swam along our port side and then stopped - it had fallen asleep! We observed this individual for a bit but eventually decided to continue onwards and let this animal rest. Not much further out we spotted a small pod of 3 harbour porpoises. They were travelling and doing mini jumps but quickly stopped and vanished. This is very usual behaviour so we continued further out into the bay. In the distance we spotted a pod of 6 white beaked dolphins. These were also travelling but came quite close to the boat, we enjoyed a few moments together but when they moved on, so did we. We had spotted 3 blows on the horizon and surely enough we found our lunch spot from the morning tour. We were now pretty much surrounded by roughly 6 humpback whales, a pod of 8 white beaked dolphins and 3 minke whales. It was truly and experience, so many beautiful fluke dives. As there were a lot of boats at some point we decided to start our return journey back to the harbour. On the way back we saw our sleeping humpback once more. 

- Anna Richter

Report from Hafsulan: We continued to sail out under beautiful blue skies. We´re having such great weather at the moment. Our tour followed the same path as the other ones to a productive area at the moment. After about an hour we started to spot blows towards our front. In total we saw at least 6-8 humpback whales all feeding as well as a pod of 3 white beaked dolphins and another 3 minke whales. Two of the humpbacks particularly caught our attention. One breached twice! Then another one would keep rolling and bring a pectoral fin out of the water. This happened at least 5 times, it was very cool. The Arctic terns acted as a great bio-indicator for following the humpbacks as they would all dive down towards the fish and this was seconds before a humpback surfaced. This made it much easier to track the whales. We also had a minke that came nice and close to our boat. It was a really nice tour under the sun!

- Rob Hyman 

Report from Eldey: The sun was still shining but the wind had picked up a bit from the previous tour. We sailed out into the bay and it took us quite some time to find something there but when we did it really was worth it. We saw a lot of humpback whale blows pop up on the horizon everywhere and suddenly we were surrounded by animals. Very many of the humpbacks only came briefly to the surface to breath and then go for fabulous fluke dives but one whale decided to pop up right in front of our boat giving us the full experience. While we were waiting for one of the many humpbacks to come up we encountered a second species, a minke whale! This minke came up very close to the boat and gave us a good look at it. After looking at all the whales we decided to head back home and were surprised by a breaching minke whale. It just jumped and jumped again. How cool is that! In total we saw 2 minke whales and probably around 6-8 humpbacks.

- Cindy Schwenk

Report from Eldey: We sailed out with some swell to entertain our very sunny way out of the bay during this night. Whilst aiming straigh to our aimed spot, we came upon a minke whale, disappearing in a flash, but lifting everyones' hopes for the upcoming sightings. As we saw several blows around us, a sudden humpback whale flapped its pectoral fins for almost 20 minutes, for everyones' amazement. We then stayed in the same area, where 2 more humpback whales roamed around us, and 5 other minke whales sprinted on the horizon. Right as one last minke apperaed right in front of us, we came upon a logging humpback whale. We manage to stay and enjoy this peaceful midnight sighting until our leave, for all of us to go rest.