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Wednesday, 13 September 2023
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, 13:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00, 14:00
Join today's tours:
This is the original whale watching tour from Reykjavík! Join our highly enthusiastic and experienced team in the search for whales, dolphins and birds of Faxaflói bay! Most common wildlife encountered are humpbacks, minkes, dolphins and porpoises.
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: This morning we sailed into our favourite bay, eager to see what it had in store for us. As we sailed out there was a bit of chop and a Northern wind. After about an hour of sailing it seemed we were suddenly surrounded by life. We spotted 4 harbour porpoises, then 1 minke whale and then a bigger blow in the distance! A humpback whale! Then in the same direction 5 jumping white-beaked dolphins! It seemed the dolphins were playing with/annoying the humpback and was quite a fun sight to see. We stayed for a while to see the beautiful fluke dives, we were able to identify this marine mammal, her name is Neila, but as the whale was doing 10 minute dives, so we decided to see another minke whale a bit closer and then come back to the humpback. It was the right call because by the time we got back to the humpback, it breached!!! A 40 tone giant completely out of the water with a big splash in the end!! Amazing!! We saw her doing a few more dives and the last one was a surprising one at touching distance from the boat. We had no idea where the whale was before that. But the time was running out and we started our way back to the Old Harbour of Reykjavík. On the way, we were able to see more dolphins jumping around, a nice goodbye to this awesome whale-watching tour.
- Pedro Teixeira
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
Report from Eldey: A fine afternoon was ahead of us, we were blessed by the calming down of the wind and the swift ocean waves, everything put together for a really nice tour. On our way out of the harbour we started to see some splashes made by a pod of 2 playful harbour porpoises that were swimming in front of the boat, greeting us with some nice jumps! About half an hour later we saw a pod of 12 white-beaked dolphins swimming together and towards us! They jumped in happiness to see us and came very close to say hello! They even jumped quite a lot and some calves were head slapping the water just to show how big and strong they are. A blow was seen not too far from us, they were from a minke whale that was busy feeding along with 4 others in the same area. We also had some gannets plunge diving into the freezing water, which is always amazing to watch. The wind picked up and the time was over so we started our way back to the harbour with a big smile on our faces!
- Anna Richter
Birdlife encountered today:
Northern gannet, Northern fulmar, Arctic skua, juvenile and adult black legged kittiwake, sooty shearwater, great and lesser black backed gull, black headed gull, herring gull
Whales encountered today:
The Humpback Whale is quite spectacular undergoing the longest migration of any mammal (5176miles/8334km one way), attracting females by singing to them and of course their energetic nature. On many occasions humpbacks have been seen breaching, tail slapping, fin slapping, blowing bubbles and spy hopping just to mention a few. The humpback is also one of the larger whales we encounter
The Minke Whale is the most common whale around Iceland and actually the world thus it is one of the main species we encounter on our whale watching tours. It is one of few species that don’t mind coming to shallower waters like here in Faxaflói Bay to feed on the abundant food available to them.
The white-beaked dolphin is the most common dolphin found in the surrounding waters of Iceland and is seen not only in the summer but winter too usually in larger numbers, hundreds sometimes. When feeding they show energetic behaviour such as breaching out of the water and coming down with a big splash and bursts of fast swimming.
The Harbour Porpoise is the smallest and most abundant cetacean around Iceland. They are usually shy but occasionally they come and play around the boats. They can be relatively hard to spot from a distance due to their size and their abundance depends entirely on the food availability of our shores since they are opportunistic feeders.