Rough seas this morning, but we braved out with a small number of passengers in search of wildlife. We headed out into the bay where we saw birds feeding, but had no luck finding whales today. Passengers were offered complimentary tickets as a result.
The wind picked up a lot and we used the shelter of Akrafjall to protect us. We offered our passengers a complimentary ticket that allow them to come back for free in the next two years for a new whale watching adventure, in Reykjavik or in Akureyri.
We first went near Akranes enjoying a nice view on the moutain Akrafjall. We could not find anything in the beginning so we went more south. We finally met a friendly humpback whale that surfaced so close from our boat, provoking the exclamation of our passengers.
The afternoon tour was a smooth sailing after a windy morning. We saw a humpback whale that surfaced incredibly close to the boat many times. We got a great look at the individual which seemed incredibly curious. Great tour!
We continue quite far in the bay but nothing was happening. We came a bit closer from the coast in the south of the bay and it is after 2 hours of our tour than we finally saw the blow made by a humpback whale. We approach to see the animal really relaxed, surfacing many times.
Many enjoyed seeing the cute puffins around also. Unfortunately at this time the wind and waves were getting stronger so we made the decision to head home early. This is definitely Icelands weather at its best, changing its mind in the last minute. We offered our passengers complimentary tickets
We counted at least 5 humpback whales seen from faraway. We could clearly approach one that we saw nicely fluke diving a few times and even rolling on its back to have both pectoral fins in the air. A minke whale was also in the area, a bit more discret than the humpbacks.
We saw many whales during this tour but they where hard to approach and to show to our passengers. In total we have seen 5-6 humpback whales and 1 minke whale. We could approach and show to our passengers 3 of these humpback whales.
The seabird life was so abundant , this usually means there is a lot of food in the bay but the whales were very few, however we did see all 4 of our usually species; 1 humpback whale, 1 minke whale, 3 small pods of 2-5 white-beaked dolphins and 2 harbour porpoises.
Very rare conditions for us here in Iceland. We encountered a super easy going humpback whale, we could even just turn off the engines and have them off for about 20minutes whilst the chilled humpback surfaced around us. As it was just mainly travelling at the surface it didn't really show its fluke well. We had one nice high fluke that many got to capture on their phones/cameras.