Friday, 3 January 2025

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00

Today's whale watching tour from Reykjavík is on schedule! Remember to dress according to weather and feel free to borrow our thermal overalls if needed!

Report from Eldey: Today was a grey winter day in Reykjavik but we were hopeful as we left the harbour because before I had even finished introducing the crew and going through safety on board, our captain spotted a blow in the distance! We headed straight there and were able to catch a few more blows of a humpback whale very close to the entrance of Skarfabakki harbour. We waited for this whale to reappear again, but it seemed shy and elusive as we couldn't find it. We decided to carry on to try our luck elsewhere. Soon we heard from another boat that they had spotted 2 blows spread out in another area. When we arrived, we decided to spend some time with the furthest whale first. This one was showing completely different behaviour to our previous individual. It was coming to the surface quite frequently and almost every dive it did was a fluke dive! It was wonderful to watch. We were even lucky enough to get some up close enounters when the whale turned and swam right towards us. As it was changing directions a lot, this whale was probably feeding. After watching this individual for a while, we moved on to the other humpback in this area. We were only able to see this indivual a few times before it disappeared below the waves. Throughout the tour, while waiting for the whales, we had also seen at least 10 harbour seals. Some of them getting curious and swimming close to the boat. At this point, we were starting to run out of time on our tour but on our way back to harbour, we stopped by the place we saw our very first humpback. As we were approaching, we saw multiple big blows but when we got closer, just like before, the whale disappeared. Obviously, this one wasn't up for socialising today! Just as started to turn back for harbour, we had a light dusting of snow. A lovely way to end the tour!

- Emily Erskine

Eider duck, black guillemot, common guillemot, great black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, great cormorant, Iceland gull