Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: It was almost impossible to see where the sea ended and the sky began, sea was so flat and reflected the colors of the clouds in a perfect way. The first sighting were 2-3 harbour porpoises that we passed by on the way out. Next we saw a rather elusive minke whale, it must have bee a young individual as it seemed very small. While following it we potted a larger animal further out, that turned out to be a humpback whale. The humpback was also elusive, surfaced only twice and went for about 8 minutes dives between. Still we got good looks at it, even the fluke when it went for a dive. Further out we found larger flocks of birds and 2 other minke whales. One of these were easy to follow, it surfaced within 100 meters so it was easy to hear it and smell it´s breath. The last sighting of the tour were 8 white beaked dolphins, they gave us a great show! breaching, leaping all around us. On the way back we enjoyed live music and the incredible weather on the bay.
-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir
Tour at 17:00
Report from Hafsulan: Sea conditions today were just fantastic and visibility was unbelievable. Sailing out we already spotted a single harbour porpoise close to one of the other whale watching boats at least 500m away from us (something almost unheard of on a regular day out in the bay). We also spotted a pod of about 4 white-beaked dolphins after only about 30 minutes of sailing. These guys were again fairly calm and a little elusive, however we got a good look at them when they got within 50m of our boat. We decided to leave them as well after about 15 minutes of staying with them and we started making our way into our main sighting area. We started spotting some minke whales here and there, however for a little while they made it quite difficult for us to observe them from up close. Sailing through our main sighting area, searching for some minke whales, we came across more dolphins and we stayed with a pod of about 5 to 6 individuals. We even saw two more pods in the distance, one of which was quite active and dolphins were leaping out of the water. We thought the trip was going alright, although we were hoping for a bit more... We saw a single minke whale in the distance and thought we would give it another try to get closer to the minke. We didn't know what we were about to get into and as we got closer to this minke, we spotted a second one as well. We sat inbetween these two minkes for a few minutes and wanted to see if they would get closer to our boat. Suddenly we spotted some harbour porpoises infront of us as well, which was also quite nice as these guys got fairly close to the boat, which we don't get too often. Apparently we were sitting amongst a lot of food for these guys, as the harbour porpoises as well as the minke whales got closer and closer to us. The minke whales started to resurface every 5 minutes or less and and after a while we had at least three minkes and lots of harbour porpoises swimming all around our boat!! This was amazing and everyone had a chance to get good photos of both minkes and harbour porpoises. Just before we wanted to slowly turn around, we spotted two humpback whales maybe 300m away from the boat!!! One was even laying on its back and raising one of its pectoral fin like a sail. We got closer to these guys and saw them resurface again next to each other before going for another dive, which lasted around 10 minutes. We continued to wait for them to come back up and while seeing some bubbles come up right in front of our boat, we thought we would be in a good spot to see them again. Indeed, they resurfaced right in front of us and as they turned away from us, they dove down and fluking us good bye. This was an absolute amazing experience for both passengers and crew and personally one of my favorite trips so far!
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 14:00
Report from Elding: What an amazing afternoon that we have had! The afternoon seemed to be promising even though the sky was overcast but the fog that we had early in the morning disappeared so we had breathtaking conditions for whale-watching. It didn´t take that much till we found our first species, we spotted a pod of harbour porpoises, there were at least 5 of them. As they are extremely elusive we didn't´t want to stop for them but this decision was wise because no more than 5 minutes later we saw a big pod of white-beaked dolphins, at the beginning we thought there were only few of them but it seemed to be around 15 of them, it was incredible! But the adventure didn't´t stop there, we have detected big flocks of birds flying around in a big area of Faxafloi, so we sailed there and we easily found a lot of individuals of the same species, it was minke whale! We were sailing around in the same area for more than one hour and we were able to see more than 8 individuals and we identified at least one of them, humpie! We were extremely happy to see her again. In the meanwhile, some harbour porpoises were popping up from now and there and when we tried to come back to Reykjavik, another big pod of white-beaked dolphins stopped us in the way, giving us nice moments and diving under the boat. The way back was quiet and enjoyable, so it was a perfect afternoon for a whale-watching!
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsulan: The mirror we were sailing in before stayed during this tour as well. And overall the conditions were even better because the annoying fog we had during the morning tour had totally disappeared in this one. So perfect conditions outside to go whale watching. The cetaceans knew this and corresponded us by showing themselves throughout the entire duration of the tour. First, a pod of 8-10 white beaked dolphins appeared. They were feeding incessantly, judging by the birds flying around them and the occasionally jumps and breachings they were performing. When we decided to move on we encounter some harbour porpoises (more than 10 over all the tour) leaping sometimes, even riding the waves of the bow of the boat! An impressive view that doesn't happen so often with the porpoises. It took a while to get to the whales but then we enjoyed 3-4 minke whales. Although they were keeping the distances, we got to see some pretty good surfacing sequences, and the entire body of this animals as they were coming to the surface to breath. A really beautiful time with the whales and dolphins in the Faxafloi!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsúlan: If only the sea conditions were everyday like they were today! The sea almost looked like a mirror, it was amazing. On our way out into the Bay we came across a single harbour porpoise. We didn´t go very fast so we didn´t scare it away and it actually stayed around us for a few minutes and everyone could watch it swimming around just about 50 m away from us. Very cute! Further out in the Bay we saw some more of them (8-10) when we waited for our first minke whale to resurface after we had seen on twice. It spent a long tome under water, though, so we moved on to another minke whale that another boat had spotted. This minke was more interesting for us to watch as it came to the surface on a very regular basis without going for long dives. Every time it came to the surface, we could see it sticking its snout out first before exhaling and disappearing again, and we managed to follow this individual for quite a while. We encountered 4 more minke whales, two of them even feeding together underneath the same flock of birds before going their separate ways. On the way back, a group of 5 white-beaked dolphins appeared out of nowhere, were extremely interested for a short while, swimming underneath our boat, bow-riding for a bit, and then heading off at the same high speed with which they had swam around us from side to side! Perfect ending to head back to Reykjavík.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Elding: Sailing out we had extremely calm seas as well as an overcast sky and lots of fog. This fog didn't bother us too much and we spotted a minke whale just after about 20 minutes of our tour. This minke popped up about 50 meters away from our boat on the right, however after two, maybe three surfaces it disappeared back into the fog. Sailing towards our main sighting area, we spotted two white-beaked dolphins. These dolphins were very calm, however they were swimming away from us everytime we tried to get closer, so we decided to not disturb them too much and after about 10 minutes we sailed on. We saw lots of atlantic puffins and other sea birds on our trip and after a little while we spotted another minke whale. This minke even showed up within 100m from the boat and everyone got to see it quite well. Continueing on, the fog started to clear up and we sailed into an area with even more puffins and manx shearwaters and we spotted two minke whale that popped up fairly consistently in our viscinity. We just sat in this area and looking around to keep up with the minkes, we even had some harbour porpoises show up as well! There were actually so many harbour porpoises around us, it was difficult to keep track of how many they were (roughly 5 - 10 individuals!). Spotting the minke whales and seeing them from as close as 20 meters really made this an awesome trip and we were very happy with what we were able to show our passengers.
- Friedrich Rittner
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull, arctic skua, arctic tern, razorbill, common guillemot, atlantic puffin, and eider duck.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík today. The condition look good today and we hope you are able to join us on the search of these magnificent animals in their natural environment.
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