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Friday, 29 September 2023
Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 and 14:00 Premium Whale tour and 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 | 9:00, 13:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00, 14:00
Tours operating today:
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.
An exhilarating premium tour starting from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík, with daily departures from 1 Apr - 31 Oct. A personal, small group tour with only 12 person per boat, a specially trained wildlife guide and a certified RIB boat captain.
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out on this beautiful sunny morning, heading straight out into the bay. The visibility was really great we could see all around the bay. As we got further out we reached the area where we could see some fishing boats. In this area was where we saw our cetaceans, probably because of the fish in the area. The first we saw was 2 white beaked dolphins who remained right by us for 5 minutes. They were always so close which excited our passengers a lot. During the rest of the trip we saw another 2 pods of dolphins, giving us a total of 12-15 individuals during the tour. These other pods were also bow riding and jumping. We saw so many leaping out of the water. We also saw 2 very very very elusive minke whales. They both only surfaced once making it difficult for people to see. But overall it was a lovely trip full of dolphins in the sun.
- Rob "Sparkles" Hyman
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
Report from Eldey: We headed back out to the same area as this morning under the sun. The sea had got calmer too making it even nicer. Once we got here the cetaceans seemed to have disappeared. We continued to search but they remained elusive. We then had to start heading back but as we got closer to the harbour we decided to check out the area near Mt Esja where we have seen minke whales recently. They were still here. We saw 2 minkes surfacing regularly whilst they fed. It was a really good sighting and definitely worth the wait. We also saw a couple harbour porpoises in this area too. Why bother going out into the bay when we have these amazing animals so close ?!
- Alexandre Paumier
Bird species seen today:
razorbills, common guillemots, Northern fulmar, Northern gannet, eider ducks, herring gull, black backed gull, black footed kittwake
Wildlife encountered today:
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.