Friday, 15 July 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 14:00, 16:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 20:30 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

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00

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. Masks are not mandatory but are recommended in areas where keeping distance from others is not possible.

Report from Eldey: This morning it was a true icelandic start to the day, a little bit of sun, a little bit of wind, also at the same time grey. We sailed out on a fairly calm sea - eager to explore and find cetaceans! As we got into the bay we were met by a minke whale! This one stayed with us for a bit before continuing on but we werent left alone for long and kept seeing more minke whales. Some of them came incredibly close to the boat which is quite rare. As we got further out suddenly the sea turned completely flat and looked like a sheet of silk. In this beautiful sea we saw 6/7 white beaked dolphins. This pod was porpoising and came investigating the boat. As time ran out and we went back home, they were bow-riding a little. We continued seeing minke whales on our return journey. A personal highlight of the tour was a bumble bee that was stranded on our boat. It seemed a little exhausted so I perked it up with some sugar water. Everyone was fascinated by seeing its little tongue slurp up the water as it rested on my hand and to learn that they rarely sting! 

- Anna Richter

Report from Elding: The seas looked quite calm in the beginning of the trip and the clouds that overcast the sky did not bother us even though the wild picked up a bit later. We sailed across the bay and after some time we spotted ourselves our first cetacean; it was a minke whale! This cute creature was soon joined by multiple other minkes (about 2 or 3 more) popping up left and right of the boat at some distance. After following these individuals for some time we set of to go further out into the bay and found even more minkes. This time we had again about 3 or 4 feeding with a flock of screaming birds. We stayed quite a while with them and got some close looks at these small baleen whales and also interesting sea birds chasing each other and plunging themselves into the cold and foamy sea. We sailed back with memories and nice fun facts about minkes and fulmars and were quite content with what the day had to offer to us.

- Cindy Schwenk

Report from Eldey: The wind was picking up this afternoon and we had a few drops of rain but the sea conditions and the visibility were still good. We Went a bit more towards south this afternoon to visit different areas and sea if we were lucky. We found an area were flocks of birds were very active and looked around. There was 3 minke whales in the area, feeding on the abundant fish of the bay. We were spotting them quickly around, sometimes close sometimes far, coming for a sequence of breaths at the surface. After a while a minke started being interested by our vessel, coming extremely close, its pointy nose out of the water to have a better look at us. This curious minke whale came to us like this 3 times around our boat before it disappear, probably interested in fresh fish close by. We continued to find some more animals but apart from the amazing birds of the bay we did not see anything else.

- Miquel Pons

Report from Elding: our day started with a great weather, but this is still Iceland and it was a bit windy at the end of the tour. Our adventure started with a minke whale close to us. It was amazing to see it putting its snout out of the water, like they do. Curious as it was, it came closer to the boat before disappearing again. It has definitely just finished feeding, because of the strong smell that we could feel at least three times. It's not a joke when we call it "stinky minke", and although its horrible, it's not everyday that you can smell such thing. After this one, we saw at least 6 more minkes, around us and in a distance, very fast and unpredictable. It was a very active morning on the bay and we could enjoy it with a lot of this minkes around us!

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: The forecast promised a choppy sea, rain and strong wind... and that's what it delivered! With the visibility getting worse, we went to new areas that we didn't explore on the earlier tours. We didn't see any cetaceans there, but on our way, a lot of passengers got very excited about the number of different seabird species we were seeing... Atlantic puffins, Northern fulmars, Northern gannets, Arctic skuas and terns... After a while, going a bit more to the areas we saw the minkes, a passenger saw the dark back of one not too far from our boat. Fast as they usually are, this minke whale started to go around us, and we could see it closer to us at the back of the boat. People got excited, but this minke was quick. We lost track of it and decided to continue our trip. The capitan saw a breaching minke at the distance, but it was going more far away and we decided to leave it alone. When it started raining a lot, most of the passengers decided to go inside to warm themselves up. I was looking for something else and not giving up easily, when I saw it: a minke whale breaching in front of the boat within 250 meters from our boat! I could even see their pink belly in a almost full breach. When I announced it on the microphone, a lot of people came really excited to join me at the outside deck. We waited a bit for this one, but it never came up again. We continued our way back to Reykjavik, and decided to give out complimentary tickets, since these minkes are very fast and few of us could take a good look at it.

- Milla Brandao

Arctic tern, Arctic skua, northern fulmar, common guillemot, black guillemot, lesser and greater black backed gull, Atlantic puffin, storm petrel, Manx shearwater, northern gannet.