Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 9:00 and 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 | 9:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00

Report from Eldey: I couldn't imagine a more active morning for us today, really. Right when we left the harbour, we spent about 15 min looking for the animals, until we saw a dark back. We thought we had lost it, but out of the blue (like, literally) a humpback whale breaches, giving away its position!! WOW! We came closer to it and waited for it to do it again, but it came down a bit and started to perform beautiful fluke dives for us. Then, it started logging on the surface, resting after the breach. We then went to check on other 2 humpbacks that were not very far. They were actively feeding, and we stopped the boat to look around. They were basically surrounding us. We were just amazed with the behaviours we were seeing right in front of us: another breach, a peduncle throw, a roll... We couldn't get enough! Then, the two whales started to swim side by side, very close, while feeding together. In the meantime, a couple of harbour porpoises popped up in several spots, there were about 5 of them. Also, 1 grey seal and the amount of seabirds joining the area made us realize we were in an incredible feeding spot. What a day!!

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: Our afternoon tour started with a bit of wind and some swell coming from the storm in the middle of the bay but, we didn't need to go too far to find our first sighting! Not even 20 minutes into the tour, as we entered the harbour where all containers were, we saw 2 humpback whales blowing away while feeding on some tasty food! They were lunge-feeding quite a lot and being very erratic so we stayed close by in order not to disturb their disorder. They came very close to us, to the point we were being blown away by their breaths!! Their names were Ekki and Frodo. This last one did something highly unusual, came super close to us, and did a small spy hop, to see what was going on on our boat as some passengers began to cry with joy for seeing a whale this close to them. This majesty decided to surprise us a few minutes later with an amazing breach!! What a whale this one is! After a few minutes of looking at Frodo, we spotted a third humpback whale, Pongo! This one was just resting and every time it moved, it did amazing fluketastic dives for us to take beautiful pictures of this whale's tail. We got back to the harbour, emotionally happy and with a warm heart filled with joy.

- Pedro Teixeira 

Great black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, Icelandic gull, Glaucous gull, razorbill, northern fulmar, northern gannet, eider duck, great cormorant, European shag, black guillemot