Sunday, 26 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
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: The weather seemed very constant and calm, the light was weak but we went out of an adventure! After about an hour of sailing to the middle of the bay, more and more birds started to pop up everywhere and that can only mean one thing, food! That can also mean whales, and so there it was, our first sighting, a minke whale that came up quite close to us a few times before setting on another direction. We then saw a blow 400 meters away from us and there it was, a humpback whale that was deep diving quite often but we saw this whale quite close! In the middle of the this, a pod of 3 to 4 white-beaked dolphins showed up to the feeding party and were gone shortly after. The time was unfortunately over and we started to make our way back to the safety of the harbour.
- Pedro Teixeira
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
Report from Eldey: the seas were still fairly calm in this afternoon, so we sailed out to see our favorite animals. We went first to Videy island area because of the amount of birds there, hoping to find any cetaceans. And indeed, we spotted 3 harbour porpoises passing by, very close to the boat and very predictably, an uncommon thing from them! We then sailed out to the same area where we found the animals in the morning, but they seemed to have shifted to other areas, and so did we. In the distance, we could see other tiny dorsal fins of more harbour porpoises, and then we, all of a sudden, spotted a group of 6 white-beaked dolphins swimming not far from us. However, they completely disappeared, so we continued searching for more, as there were many birds in the area. After a while, we saw we were running out of time and decided to come back to Reykjavik, but giving out complimentary tickets so the passengers can have another chance of seeing our bay full of life in another opportunity.
- Milla Brandao
Bird species encountered today include:
Northern fulmar, great blacked-backed gull, icelandic gull, lesser black-backed gull, razorbill, sooty shearwater, black-headed gull, eider duck
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.