Friday, 1 April 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 and 14:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00 and 13:00 Classic Whale Watching tours. Make sure to dress appropriately for the tours as it is always colder on sea than on land.

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00

COVID-19: Keep in mind that passengers and crew are asked to ensure their own hygiene and safety at all times. Washing hands thoroughly with soap and using a hand sanitiser is advised. 

Report from Eldey: Calm sea and nice weather made us start our trip in a good mood. We got excellent visibility, so it was not long before we spotted a shy minke whale that surfaced right in front of us. And soon another minke whale as well! So we were surrounded by 2 minke whales! One of them was a bit further away and unfortunately, not many passengers got to see it since it only surfaced few times before going for a dive, but the other one suddenly appeared at only 50 m distance and then traveled fast along our side. We enjoyed their presence and we moved on and soon learned about more cetaceans spotted further inshore from another vessel. That's where we made out way to and were rewarded with a beautiful humpback whale. We immediately identified the humpback whale as Neila, the beloved humpback that had been visiting us last summer. We were super excited to see her paying us another visit in Faxaflói. Amazingly, Neila was very active today, she was tail-slapping, rolling, creating bubbles and BREACHING! On our way back to Reykjavík we encountered a pod of 2-4 chubby harbour porpoises. And the tour ended off with a pink and purple unicorn (haha happy April fool's day!). What an amazing morning tour!

- Estel Sanchez Cami

Report Thruma: First tour of the season and we start with great sea conditions. There was almost no waves and just a little bit of wind so it was pleasant to motor-drive in the bay this morning, The sky was covered in clouds but there was a beautiful lights on the landscape. We qucikly found our first sighting of the day with a really nice humpback whale. This humpback had already been sighted last year, we recognize the two barnacle shells in the middle of the tail looking at us. We stayed with it for a while and witnessed beautiful fluke dives, sometimes from very close. When other boat arrived we gave the whale space and went further out to see if there was other animals to observe in the bay. We spotted the back of a minke whale far away, we approached and waited. The minke was not coming up near us and even though we looked around we could not find it again. We came back after exploring a bit more in the north of the bay and found the humpback whale from the beginning again. We stayed a few minutes and went back to the harbour after some city sighting from the sea. 

- Miquel Pons

Report from Eldey: The sea was beautifully calm today and a wonderful sunshine greeted us into the bay. With these conditions, the visibility was excellent and we could see the back of a humpback whale from almost a mile away. We approached her to find that this was the same individual as in the morning: Neila. Neila is one of the whales who received her name in our “Name a Whale” competition just yesterday so it was a great coincidence to see her in the bay today, as if she had heard us call her name. We know Neila to be a very curious whale and this time she came very close to our boat again. She was resting and staying at the surface for a long time, giving us plenty of opportunity to admire her. She often showed her fluke, the one that earned her her name: Neila is “alien” spelled backwards, and on the underside of her fluke she has some barnacle scars reminiscent of an alien face😊 After a wonderful time in the close presence of this whale and accompanied by a few northern fulmars flying very close to us, we made a round in a different area to see if there were some other animals around and to admire the landscape and a beautiful rainbow before we motored back to Reykjavík.

- Eline van Aalderink

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Black-legged kittiwake, herring gull, black-backed gull, eider duck, northern fulmar, european shag, long-tailed duck, Atlantic puffin, black guillemot

Report from Thruma: The sea was even nicer this afternoon and if we had a few drops here and there we also had a great sunshine during the tour. We went out looking for the nice cetaceans of the bay but our first encounter was with sea birds. There was a hundred long-tailed ducks flying together and we even saw the first atlantic puffin of the season! We were very happy about it as it means that soon the bay will be filled by those adorable birds. We continued and saw from far away the silhouette of a humpback whale. We tried to get closer and waited to see if the whale was surfacing again and where. After 15-20 minutes waiting we decided to continue, this humpback maybe went for a very long dive and went far away. We went closer to Reykjavik and found the same humpback whale than this morning, Neila. She was calm and going for deep dives showing her fluke, often changing direction. We had a great sighting and when we were out of time we came back after having some fun with the speedboat near the city.

- Miquel Pons