Friday, 26 August 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 11:00, 14:00 and 16:00 Premium Whale tour and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 19:00 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
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 11:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 16:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 19:00

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: The conditions were a bit difficult in Faxafloí. The sky was clear and blue with a lot of sun but a strong northern wind was blowing during the tour, making the sea choppy and filled with white caps. The swell was not very strong so the sailing was still fine. We first went in direction of Akranes and turned once we had the shelter from the mountains to go in the area where humpbacks were seen yesterday. We saw many northern gannets plunge-diving in a spectacular way. Suddenly a minke whale surfaced close to our boat, then some while after surfacing again three times on our right. We could not find it anymore but we had a glimpse of 2 harbour porpoises. Another boat felt like they saw a blow so we went there and waited. Unfortunately nothing happened and we were out of time so we had to turn back to Reykjavik. We gave complimentary tickets to our passengers hoping that next time they will have nicer sightings. 

- Miquel Pons 

Report from Elding : Choppy seas and strong wind was what greeted us as soon as we started sailing on our morning tour. The forecast did not make us expect that strong winds, the sea is always unpredictable we only are sure of the weather when we go out. After some time, and some green faces, we got to an area where we saw a few minke whales. We saw at least 3 individuals appearing really briefly by the boat for just one breath. With the wind and the swell it was difficult to enjoy these whales or even see them again. We navigated for some time cautiously in this area in the hope of seeing them better. Not much luck for us today, we then made our way back to the harbour in this strong wind and offered complimentary tickets for the passengers to come back again and enjoy the wonders of whale watching in Iceland. There will be no afternoon tours today, let´s see if the wind settles down for the evening tour. 

- Melanie Magnan

Report from Eldey: We started this sunny midnight tour under a lot of wind. But after half an hour the wind turned off and it was a very pleasant sailing. We went to another area a bit more north than this morning hoping to be more lucky. Once we arrive quite far in the bay we started to see many many blows. It was mainly small blows belonging to minke whales, and a few big once that we assume where belonging to humpback whales. Once we arrived a bit more in the middle of the blows we started seeing the black back and pointy dorsal fin of minke whales. We probably saw 7-10 different minke whales during the tour, and the blow of more than 20. We saw probably two different humpback whales as well but they were diving from very long and we could not have a close sighting with those beautiful animals. Also a very jumpy white-beaked dolphin got all of our attention coming close to the boat still jumping in the sunset, absolutely beautiful. It was joined by another white-beaked dolphin a few minutes later. We went back with the sunset in our back happy that there is so many animals in the bay.

- Miquel Pons

Eurasian oystercatcher, common guillemot, Atlantic puffin, northern fulmar, lesser and greater black backed gulls, black legged kittiwakes, northern gannet