Thursday, 25 January 2024

Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 13:00 Classic Whale Watching tour. Make sure to dress according to weather, as it is usually colder at sea than on land.

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00

Report from Eldey: Today we were expecting very strong winds, but the tour was not windy, at least in the area we were. Instead, we experienced a lot of light and heavy snow on the second half of the tour. Luckily, the whales today were all in the same area, in between the islands! We first spotted a lone humpback whale, and getting closer to it we realized we also had another pair not far away, lunge feeding repeatedly, sometimes in our direction. We appreciated this pair coming close, showing their rostrum every time they come up. This pair would do everything together: when one showed the fluke for a dive, the other one would do the same. Even when one didn't show the fluke, the other copied it. They were very synchronized and made us realized they were working together! We then went to check the first lone humpback, this one going for deeper dives and spending a couple of minutes down there. We also spotted a pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises very close, going to different directions in one spot, indicating they were feedind too! We also decided to check another blow we saw not very far away and we got another humpback, that was highly identifiable because of the mottling pattern on the back! We saw another blow next to the shore, and we came back to check another whale out. We believed we had a 5th humpback whale around because this one had a different diving pattern than the one alone we saw before. This one was feeding as well, amongst the big flock of seabirds in the area. Also, everywhere we looked we had a grey seal looking at us, very curious. There were about 15 seals during the whole tour and it was great to see whales, seals and birds all together in this very productive area. After seeing so much, we realized we were running out of time and started our journey back home.

- Milla Brandao