Monday, 6 November 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 | 9:00, 13:00

Report from Eldey: the sea was a bit choppy today and the cold North wind told us winter was coming strong, but these was not in our way when finding the animals! Right after we left the harbour, we decided to go closer to the mountain of Esja before going into the bay, and we spotted a couple of dorsal fins, surprisingly!  We had a pod of 5 white-beaked dolphins in the area, that were a bit elusive, but all around, scattered. We decided to wait for them for a while before continuing our way. After seeing them one more time, we continued the journey and spotted a flock of birds that was super active feeding on the surface. We checked to see if they had more company and... indeed! A minke whale was also having a feast in the area, and it surprised us when it came very close to us. We tried to see this one again, until we decided to explore other areas. We got to one with about 4 dolphins, that were swimming away from us, but we still could see them a couple of times. Returning to Reykjavík, we had another good surprise: a humpback whale was feeding actively at the surface, and it came so close to us many times. We could track it by the white pectoral fins through the surface, while it came lunge feeding right in front of us. This individual was very fast, popping up at different spots in very short time! And it was not the only humpback in the area: a bit far from us, we could spot another blow and see the fluke of a second one. What a start of the week it was!

- Milla Brandão

Report from Eldey: We went back to explore the bay now knowing what area, where the animals where observe earlier in the morning. We went there directly and quickly spotted the blows of 2 humpback whales. They were feeding in a similar area but not swimming together. We stayed first with the one closer that was having a very erratic behaviour, surfacing frequently, coming back sometimes after only 30 seconds after a fluke dive, maybe feeding on fish close to the surface. We could see it sometimes very close, once it came to maybe 10 meters from the boat surfacing with a lot of speed so we could see its round throat full of water. We then tried to see the second one but it was moving more and diving longer so a bit more difficult to spot. We went back with a bit of a curve towards the south see if we could spot something else but beside northern gannets and razorbill we did not find more cetaceans.

- Miquel Pons

Glaucus gull, black back gull, herring gull, razorbill, great cormorant, Northern gannet, eider duck