Friday, 27 April 2018

Tour status: RUNNING

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: The sky had cleared up, the sun was shining, and it certainly felt like summer out on the bay. The tour began with a brief sighting of 4 harbour porpoises close to Reykjavík. These small toothed whales were in large numbers in the bay today, we must have seen at least 30 individuals throughout the tour. Further out we spotted a minke whale. Everyone got a great look at the minke whale as it surfaced a few times close to the boat before we decided to keep on going. Soon another whale was spotted up ahead, this time it was a humpback whale! As it was a rather elusive animal we decided to keep on going, this was definitely a good decision as we had such a fantastic sighting further out! We found an area with 7 feeding humpback whales. Although they were scatted over a large area we could spot them all from one location. We stopped our boat to watch the animals surface with the mouth filled of water and fish around us. We listened to their blows and the sounds of the diving sea birds. It was an incredible moment, you can’t get a better feeling for nature than in the middle of a feeding frenzy like this.

-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: What an INCREDIBLE tour! Only a few minutes of leaving harbour we encountered our first cetaceans, a small pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises popped up, delighting us with their little forms. Further out into the bay we encountered a lovely minke whale and then up popped another one and they began feeding. These minkes not only surfaced very regularly and came up high out of the water but you could see them actively hunting. Lunging with their mouths wide open and then rolling onto their bellies, just incredible. After watching these animals for some time we headed off and found ourselves some white-beaked dolphins, this pod of 6 individuals delighted us by swimming right towards us. In the distance large blows were spotted accompanied by a few splashes. Once closer we could see these animals were humpback whales which were lunge feeding! Coming up with their mouths wide open! Just incredible to watch. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay too long with these amazing animals as time was running out. But the sightings did not end there, more minke whales and porpoises were spotted on the way back. A truly once in a lifetime tour! 

- Tess Hudson 

Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, common guillemot, Atlantic puffin, black-legged kittiwake, eider duck, lesser black-backed gull, Icelandic gull.

We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. There is some undercurrent in the sea today, and we do have seasickness tablets free of charge at the ticket office and the boat. All our boats have inside and outside areas and to make the tour even more comfortable we provide warm overalls and if you are sensitive to motion sickness we do have seasickness tablets free of charge at the ticket office.