Saturday, 9 March 2024

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00

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.

Report from Eldey: Today we sailed out watching a beautiful sunrise while looking for whales. These tours we've been very lucky by the fact that we don't even finish our introduction speech and Bam! A whale in the distance. So we saw the back of a humpback whale, with a beautiful blow coming up at the surface. It was Frodo, a well-known whale that is always actively feeding. Frodo, as magestic as it is, was fast with its surfacings, sometimes showing us the very white tail, sometimes just arching its back. Later on, we decided to sail out a bit, always with our eyes sharp to other sightings. As we were sailing, we spotted 2 harbour porpoises and then we decided to check Frodo out again. Again, it was coming close and seconds later popping quite far, which was hard to make a move with the boat, so we watched it going for deeper dives and lunge feeding. Close to it, a lone harbour porpoise popped up, almost following Frodo side-by-side! It was an interesting interaction, since porpoises are known for being very introspective animals, so they do not tend to do associations with other species. The sun was shining, we had good sightings of the cetaceans and off we went to the harbour after a good morning!

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: This afternoon we sailed out to the calm seas of Faxaflói bay for a another amazing trip! Just a few minutes after leaving the harbour we spotted Frodo! A humpback whale that we have been regularly seeing feeding in these waters! Frodo was very friendly once more, moving gently probably searching for food. While we were still admiring Frodo we had another surprise of a minke whale resurfacing close by! We only observed it for a couple of minutes before disappearing in the water again!  After some time we decided to head out further and we were lucky to spot a pod of 10 to 12 white-beaked dolphins, with 2 calves, probably feeding and changing directions rapidly around the boat. As we said goodbye to the dolphin pod and circle back around to the harbour we had an exceptional encounter with a harbour porpoise that swam rapidly next to our boat! Last but not least we still had some time to check Frodo once more before returning home.

- Maria Ernesto

eider duck, razorbill, black-leggged kittiwake, Northern gannet, Northern fulmar, great cormorant, black guillemot, common guillemot, herring gull, black backed gull, great Northern diver