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Monday, 4 November 2024
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00, 13:00
Reykjavík: All Classic Whale Watching tours are on schedule today! Please remember to dress warmly, as it can be quite chilly out on the water, and plan to arrive at least 10-15 minutes before departure.
Remember to email our team at elding@elding.is with the date and time of your tour, and we'll send you photos from your experience!
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out to Faxaflói Bay, the sea was quite calm after some windy days. It took us about 45 minutes before we started noticing large flocks of birds flying around, so we decided to slow down and pay more attention. Just a few moments later, we spotted our first minke whale! It surfaced near us multiple times, close enough that we could even catch a whiff of its famously stinky breath. As we scanned our surroundings, a couple of dorsal fins caught our attention at the back—harbor porpoises! Then, a bit further out, larger dorsal fins appeared, marking the arrival of a pod of white-beaked dolphins. About ten of them, including a small calf! After a few minutes, we decided to continue our journey and saw a blow nearby. As we got closer, a humpback whale surfaced super close to our boat! Then three more showed up! One even rolled over and showed its pectoral fin! They got super so close to our boat, giving us a perfect ending to our tour just before we returned to the harbor.
-Maria Ernesto
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed back out into the bay this afternoon with beautiful sunshine! After a successful morning, we headed back to the same area. On our way there we spotted a pod of 5-6 harbour porpoises. They swam down the side of our boat as we sailed past. We were able to see them surface a few times close to us before they lost interest in us and went back to feeding. Then just a little while later, we found a minke whale. This individual stayed fairly close to us and we were able to watch it surface around us multiple times before it disappeared under the waves. Once it had gone, we decided to move on as another boat had seen a small pod of around 5 white-beaked dolphins. When we got there, the pod was a little elusive but we still managed to watch the swimming next to us. Then, straight ahead of us, we saw blows! It was 3 humpback whales! They were all swimming together and were curious enough to come right up next to us! We could almost see their whole bodies through the water! One of them was a bit more energetic than the others and started slapping one pectoral fin on the water and then both! Putting on quite a show! We saw another blow not too far away and found a fourth humpback whale but this individual was not in a playful mood and was avoiding us, so we headed back to the three we were with originally and enjoyed them until we unfortunately ran out of time and had to head back to the harbour.
- Emily Erskine
Bird species seen today include:
Sooty shearwater, common guillemot, eider duck, black legged kittiwake, cormorant, glaucous gull, Icelandic gull, lesser black-backed gull.
Wildlife encountered today:
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.
Book Here:
This is the original whale watching tour from Reykjavík! Join our highly enthusiastic and experienced team in the search for whales, dolphins and birds of Faxaflói bay! Most common wildlife encountered are humpbacks, minkes, dolphins and porpoises.
