Friday, 5 August 2022

Today we will be operating 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 | 13:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 16:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 19:00

Report from Eldey: Covered in colours and under a colourful sky we left port to find some colourful whales. Soon after leaving with managed to find 3 minke whales surface feeding in front of the boat, their splashing scaring away the puffins and guillemots blanketing the water´s surface. Seeing some dolphins leaping repeatedly out of the water in the distance we decided to leave these minkes alone and try to follow them, however they stopped their acrobatics and we lost sight of them. After travelling in their direction for some time looking we found another minke whale and just as we approached we suddenly saw the 10 white beaked dolphins again on our left by a whale safari RIB boat. Approaching them they left the rib and began to bow ride out boat and 2 juvenile dolphins leapt out of the water again and again. After spending some time with these delightful animals and a couple more minke whales we decided to leave them alone and see what else we could find. After searching we discovered a blow on the horizon that looked like a large animal was present. Approaching the animal we discovered it was a humpback whale! We tried to stay around for this whale however it was not too friendly and didn´t spend much time at the surface for us to see it up close, so running out of time we decided to head home.

- Liam aka "The flamboyantly happy puffin"

Report from Hafsulan: calm seas and mostly dry weather in Faxafloi bay. As it was overcast and there was little wind, it was easy to spot the animals we were looking for: we quickly found a pod of white beaked dolphins, 10 strong, including three calves. The dolphins were very active, swimming fast and changing direction often, with the calves taking leaps out of the water. Unfortunately, it didn't look like they were enjoying our company; on the contrary, they seemed a wary of our ship, as the adults were probably nervous due to the presence of their calves and were being protective. Because we didn't want to disturb them more than what we already did, we sailed more offshore, where we found a minke whale passing by. After this fast sighting we moved towards an area where an humpback whale was seen. This one was taking frequent long deep dives, but didn't seem to mind our presence and the one of other ships, coming quite close to us and taking a dive underneath the ship. On the way back we spotted at a distance a pod of jumping dolphins, which gave a great conclusion to our journey.
-Francesco Golin

Report from Eldey: Our patience was tested a bit more this afternoon as the cetaceans of Faxaflói initially weren’t in the most active whale-watching mood. The minke whale we spotted only came up a few times, and the pod of 5-6 white-beaked dolphins were also more occupied with finding fish than showing themselves at the surface. Of course, we are here to visit these animals in their natural habitat and we understand that they can’t always put up a spectacular show for us – it was therefore still very special to catch a few looks at these whales and dolphins. But the tour wasn’t even over: the bay still had more in store for us we spotted the blow and body of a humpback whale a bit further out! We were able to see the humpback surface a few times before we had to head back to Reykjavík.

-         - Cindy Schwenk  

 

Report from Hafsula: Still good weather at the beginning of the tour like this morning with a later a bit more of winds and white caps. Still a beautiful day to spot the animals in the bay! We saw 1 humpback whale with quite a lot of whale watching boats in the area. We were about to leave as it was too much crowded but some boats decided to leave so we could stay a bit longer with the animal. This humpback was actually a bit hard to follow at it stayed under the water quite a long time, probably busy to find some food. We stayed around 20 minutes with animal but we decided to leave this humpback as it was staying underwater for quite a long time. We decided to try our chance somewhere else but unfortunately we did not see other animals and the weather started to be a bit worse, making hard to spot the animals.

Report from Eldey: It was a grey evening as we started our sail out of the harbour. Black guillemots were floating around us, along with some cute (but ferocious) atlantic puffins. It was barely a few meters away from Akurey that we had our first very brief sighting : a pod of about 5 harbour porpoises decided to show themselves by the starboard side of our vessel. Harbour porpoises being harbour porpoises, the sighting was really brief. We continued our way outside of the harbour and after about 1h spotted a humpback whale appearing next to our boat. This humpback whale though turned out to be quite elusive, hence we got to see it a few times blowing but never too close to us or for a long time. This one does not want to be seen, and we have to respect their behavior, they are the ones deciding of the sightings, this is why after a few attempts we decided to head off, too try our luck exploring a different area. We then saw another humpback whale, unsure whether it was the same one or another individual, that came quite close next to our boat. That was the highlight of our trip, as the whale went down afterwards and was no where to be seen. We then started our way back to the harbour.

- Francesco Golin

Northern Gannet, black-legged kittiwake, common guillemot, Atlantic puffin, Arctic skua, Manx shearwater, greater and lesser black-backed gull, Arctic tern, storm petrel, herring gull, glaucous gull, Brünnich’s guillemot