Minke whales are known to be somewhat elusive animals with the occasional exception. This one was quite social, curious and interested to check out our boat Hafsúlan! Much to our passengers delight, the whale stayed around the boat for a while and we were able to see its whole body just under the water's surface. BEAUTIFUL!

Video by cpt. Ottó: 

 

The Viðey Ferry is now running according to our summer schedule with daily departures going from the Old Harbour, Harpa Concert Hall and Skarfabakki pier to the charming island of tranquility and peace! Hourly departures starting at 10:15-17:15 from 15 May - 30 September.

Schedule & departure times: elding.is/videy-ferry

F

A humpback whale was spotted WITHIN the harbour walls of Reykjavík in the early hours of Saturday! Rare, although not unheard of, whales sometimes venture close to shores and into marinas as a result of following food. The whale didn't seem to be hurt or in distress, just feeding among the marooned boats and ships and thankfully it found its way out of the harbour again a cou

It's almost summer now which means that our boats are getting a well deserved pampering and overhaul on the dry dock after a busy winter season. The boats will be serviced as needed and the outside will be re-painted in 'Elding red' to make them fresh looking again for the upcoming season!

Harbour seals are quite common here in Faxaflói and are often seen poking their heads out of the water close to the few small islands just off Reykjavík that are inhabited puffins in the summer. They tend to stick to familiar resting spots near rocky areas where they are protected from adverse weather conditions and safe from the threats of bigger animals.

They are most commonly brown

It's been an incredible past few weeks in Faxaflói bay and there seem to be plenty of fish still around for the whales to feed on. We've seen humpback whales in numbers; diving, feeding and showing off to our passengers on nearly every tour since early April!

Humpback whales weren't so common in the Reykjavík area a few years back, but now many of them seem to be returning each summer

Elding has a supported whale research by local and international scientists for years and sometimes they join us onboard to study the whales in Faxaflói bay. Today we had a couple of cetologists out on one of our RIB's to get a bit closer to the humpback whales as they were taking biopsy samples from them. 

The sun has finally arrived in Reykjavík and our Sea Angling Gourmet tours are up and running again for the summer! Departures are daily at 09:00 and 13:30 from the Old Harbour, just minutes away from the city centre. Don't miss out on the chance to reel in a fresh fish like a real Icelandic fisherman on the traditional oak vessel SAGA. BBQ your catch on board as light lunch and take the rest w

THE PUFFINS HAVE ARRIVED!

Due to the early arrival of these sweet birds we have decided to start the season ahead of schedule. Rather than starting 1 May like we normally would, we will be operating from the 24 April this year.

Join us for a chance to view the magnificent 'clowns of the sea' in their natural habitat! elding.

PÁSKAR - PÁSKAR - PÁSKAR

Næstkomandi laugardag, 13. apríl 2019, býður Elding upp á árlega páskaeggjaleit í Viðey í samstarfi við Viðeyjarstofu, Borgarsögusafn Reykjavíkur og súkkulaðigerðina Góu.

Það er ekkert þátttökugjald í leitinni en gestir greiða ferjugjald sem er 1,600 kr.-, 50% afsláttur fyrir börn 7-17 ára og frítt fyrir þau yngstu.

Fyrsta ferjan siglir frá

FINALLY, RIB SEASON IS HERE!

Premium Whale Watching is a small-group tour on specially modified speed-boats and is the ultimate way to watch whales and dolphins in their natural habitat. It is undoubtedly the most up close and personal wildlife experience available from Reykjavík.

Zoom through the waters across Faxaflói bay, with the mountains on the horizon. Learn all

Puffins are part of the Auk family of seabirds that also include razorbills and guillemots. They are quite small in size; only 30 cm. in length, weighing 400 gr. with a wingspan of 55 cm. They feed on sandeels, capelin and herring but seem to be decreasing in numbers over the last few years due to the lack of food in the bay caused by increasing water temperatures. They are consi

After a few days with no sightings of whales, it was refreshing to go out this morning to witness a humpback whale lunge feeding! elding.is/whale-diary/thursday-7-march-2019

"Lunge feeding could be regarded as a kind of inverted suction feeding, during which a whale takes a huge gulp of water, which is then filtered through the balee

What a pleasant surprise! Two male orcas / killer whales were seen swimming together on our 13:00 tour on the last day of February 2019. They are not residents of the area and not really a common visitors either, although we see them a few times a year; in winter and most often again in summer. They tend to stay closer to the North of Snæfellsnes penins

Elding has now achieved the PLATINUM CERTIFICATE of EarthCheck which is the highest certification in their ranking! It is awarded to those organisations that successfully meet the environmental requirements with a consistent commitment for 10 years. We are proud to be the ONLY EarthCheck certified whale watching company in the entire world - a great achievement for an

That's right! We've encountered our first minke whale of 2019. Unusual that, since minke whales are "supposed to" come back from migration around march, but it seems that this individual is just back a bit earlier than customary. Great news for us since we've missed this species not having seen many since last autumn!

Read more about the tour: eld

Akureyri in the North of Iceland

Our love for whales and wildlife has spread! In summer of 2016 we started operating whale watching tours from down town Akureyri. Now a couple of years later, we have merged with another boat operator in the area so we can provide a greater variety of services and higher quality tours.

Sighting guarantee

Better service & more comfort

Hunting the aurora lights by boat gives you more comfort. On the boat we have a heated inside seating area where we also sell light refreshments and hot drinks. Our boats have great 360° viewing platform for searching for the lights and expert aurora guides that help you enjoy the lights to the fullest. You can borrow our free overa

Viðey island situated just few minuets from Reykjavik city by ferry.

Unspoiled nature reigns on island of Viðey, which has a unique place in Icelandic history. Birdlife abounds on the island, while out­stand­ing works of modern art also make their mark.

Viðey was inhabited from soon after the sett­lement ofIce­land around 900 AD. In 1225 a

Most modern classifications split the minke whale into two species, the Antarctic minke whale sometimes called the southern minke whale and the Common minke whale or northern minke whale found f.ex. around Iceland.

The minke whale is the smallest member of the rorquals and the second smalles

Become a humpback identify specialist

Matching humpback whale flukes can be simple, especially after our scientists have done the preparatory work for us. Humpback whales have a unique pigmentation pattern on the underside of their tail (flukes) much like a "thumbprint" that allows us to identify individual animal

Baleen whale filtering system Humpbacks in hunting mode usually take a good dive, by lifting their fluke and swimming down to the deep for food. Once they have found their prey, usually krill or small fish like mackerel, they increase their speed and just before they reach their prey, they open their mouth.

The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from 12–16 m (39–52 ft) and weigh around 25–30 metric tons (28–33 short tons).

Humpbacks are found in every ocean and seas around the world and have the longest migration route of any mamma

Fyrirmyndafyrirtæki ársins 2018 Ábyrg ferðaþjónusta

- Elding

Undanfarin tvö ár hefur Elding ásamt 300 öðrum fyrirtækjum tekið þátt í hvatningarverkefni um að fyrirtæki tengd ferðaþjónustu sammælist um nokkrar skýrar og einfaldar aðgerðir um ábyrga ferðaþjónustu svo Ísland verði ákjósanlegur áfangastaður ferðamanna um ókomna tíð og styðji við

Snæfellsjökull (Snow mountain glacier) often seen on our tours from the city of Reykjavík over Faxa Bay, at a distance of 120 km. The name of the mountain is actually Snæfell (Snow mountain) but it is normally called "Snæfellsjökull" to distinguish it from two other mountains with this name. The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel Journey to the Cente

When sailing out from Reykjavik for whale searching, mount Esja, sometimes called "the queen of mountains" (by capital residents) is one of the first things you notice. Esja is not a single mountain, but a volcanic mountain range, made from basalt and tuff. Esja's formation dates back to the beginning of the last Ice Age, the volcano is no longer active. The mountain is one of the most popular

Our captain, Gulli, met up with this beautiful humpback whale. It doesn't matter how often you see these giants rising out from the deep, it always gets your heart going good. Still you know, that under the surface, the whale is hiding most of its body as it can reach up to 16m in length (50ft) and can weigh up to 60 tons! These friendly giants rule the oceans as you can find them in every ocea

WHITE BEAKED-DOLPHIN

The white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) is a marine mammal belonging to the family Delphinidae (dolphins) in the suborder Odontoceti
(toothed whales).

Its scientific name Lagenorhynchus means bottlenose (lageno - flask or bottle, rhynchus - nose, beak

The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are some of the most extraordinary natural phenomena on Earth. They occur when charged particles from the sun are carried by solar winds and collide with Earth’s magnetic field. These particles are drawn toward the magnetic poles, where they interact with gases in the atmosphere (mainly oxygen and nitrogen) producing light in various colours.

Unlike most mammals, marine mammals cannot rely on vision and smell as their main senses. The vision is compromised under slow physical movement of the water. Therefore, marine mammals have evolved to use sounds and hearing as their primary means of c

Today we celebrated our Nordic Council Environment Prize 2018 nomination by inviting our colleagues in the toursm industry as well as our passengers and anyone else willing and wanting to make the world a bit cleaner to a beach cleaning.

Among those who helped were our friends from Gray Line, Reykjavík Excursions, Arctic Jet, Dive.is, Erik the Red Guesthouse, Hotel Reykjavík Lights an

Elding has been nominated for the Nordic Council Environment Prize 2018! We are nominated for decades of work on the protection of marine environment — which is the title of the environmental prize this year. We, the Elding family, are extremely proud of the nomination.

The nomination alone is a significant acknowledgment of our environmental work that truly is close to our heart

The northern lights are back and the season is already off to a great start! First tour of the winter had great views and sightings of the auroras.

Book your preferred northern ligths experience here.

On July 23, for the first time in the history of Elding whale watching, we came up on a North Atlantic Right whale! one of the most endangered of all large whales It has now been identifide by The Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life as: Mogul a 10 year old male born to Slalom in 20

BREAKING NEWS! A first in Elding history; a north atlantic right whale was seen in Reykjavík today, 23 July 2018. 

It is one of the most endangered of all large whales, with a long history of human exploitation and no signs of recovery despite protection from whaling since the 1930's. The female north atlantic right whale can reach 18 m. and the males strech to 1

From our whale diary 13 July 2018: "It was a beautiful individual of basking shark, the first spotted this season. They are only coming close to the surface when is warm enough and this one delighted our trip with very close encounters so we could see his gigantic white mouth while filtrating plankton. A unique experience without any doub

Come join us this Saturday on Whale Day where there will be plenty of things to see in and around the Old Harbour.

Join us in Fífill 'the floating museum' by the Old Harbour and witness the magical world of whales from below sea level and listen to their call. Have some waffles, play games, try our whale cookies, face painting, a treasure hunt (with prizes!) and learn about the wildli

We proudly announce that Elding received Kuðungurinn award for outstanding performance when it comes to environmental issues for the year 2017!

Elding started paying special attention to environmental issues in 2006 by integrating Green Globe (now EarthCheck) into our daily operations to get a clear insight of the matter within the company. Now, 12 years on, we are still nowhere near