Friday, 15 March 2024

Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 9:00 and 13:00 Classic Whale Watching  tour. Make sure to dress according to weather, as it is usually colder at sea than on land.

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 13:00

Report from Eldey: Today we started with very strong winds coming from the East waking us up, and keeping us alert for any sign of cetaceans of Faxaflói bay! We sailed out to the same area that we've been seeing the whales on the last couple of months, but as we couldn't find anything there, we started to sail out, a bit far out in the bay. It was snowy and gloomy, but the birds around were telling us we would have some luck there. After a while, we decided to check next to the islands again, but now we went to the oter side of it. A bit in the distance, we spotted this big blow coming at the surface, and we were sure we have found a whale! Indeed, it was a humpback whale, and getting closer to it, we got to see it was Frodo, a female humpback that was again quite active at the surface. It lunge fed close to us, as we could see its mouth full of water and food. Then, out of the blue (like, literally...) Frodo did a big splash, like it was doing a peduncle throw! It was incredible and we kept our cameras ready in case it does it again. But Frodo seemed calmer now. She was quite slow at the surface, going for deeper dives and slowly showing us its fluke. We sticked with her for a few more moments, watching it coming closer sometimes. After a while, we realized we needed to start our journey to the harbour and so we did, after spending a nice time with Frodo!

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: We set off today heading straight to the area we saw the whale this morning. This was battling against some very strong wind and snow. Once we arrived to the same area as this morning we saw no whale unfortunately. So we carried on searching for cetaceans and we came across 2 harbour porpoises who surfaced a few times for some of our passengers to see their little bodies. Now the wind was behind making it a more pleasant journey. Then finally we saw a humpback whale! It was very close to a little island called Akurey. We then got to follow this whale for a long time as it moved quickly, heading out into the bay. It surfaced lots and even showed the fluke to us! It was Frodo. We then got to see it lunge feed a few times before we had to head back after a great tour.

- Rob Hyman

Eider duck, great black backed gull, lesser black backed gull, Northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, common guillemot, herring gull, common gull, European shag