Friday, 7 November 2025

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 13:00

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

Report from Hafsúlan: This morning, we started with a beautiful sunrise turning the clouds pink. We headed between the islands to search the areas where we have seen cetaceans for the last few weeks. On the north side of Lundey, we found a minke whale! This individual was feeding so was moving around a larger area, changing directions many times but we were still able to follow it easily. A few times, it swam straight towards us and surfaced right next to the boat - uncommon behaviour from a minke whale! Soon some other whale watching boats arrived, so we decided to move on and continue our search. We soon found 12-15 harbour porpoises all swimming and feeding in one area outside Hvalfjörður. Again, they came very close to us and we saw them enough times that we were able to get some photos! This is usually very difficult with our smallest common species! After watching them for a while, they started to move on and chase their next meal, so we also moved on. Not too long after, we headed back towards the islands and towards the harbour but then we spotted some splashes! Our third sighting of the trip! 20-30 white-beaked dolphins! They were spread over a large area north of Viðey, all swimming very fast at first. We followed them for a while and some started to come close to the sides and back of our boat so we could clearly see the white stripe down their sides. Soon we started to run out of time and had to start heading back into the harbour but then one of the other whale watching boats let us know that they had seen our fourth species of the trip! We headed there and just outside the harbour were a pair of humpback whales! They were very calm at the surface, one of them would just log there. We were able to see two amazing surface sequences, including beautiful fluke dives from one of the whales. The second time they were at the surface, they were right next to our boat so we could even see their bright white pectoral fins through the water! An incredible morning at sea with a Faxaflói BINGO!

- Emily Erskine 

Report from Hafsulan: 

We sailed out with beautiful weather, the sun was shining it wasn't too cold and the sea was calm. Not even 4 minutes in the tour, we found 2 Humpback Whales side by side. They were very slowly and calm, just logging on the surface for a while and then going down, with one showing us it's beautiful fluke. After watching them for a while, we decided to leave them alone and go look for something else. And we did find something else. A Minke Whale, which was a little hard to follow, because it was changing the directions every so often, and all of a sudden came up to breath behind our boat, although it was 100m in front of our boat before. But very cute, showing us it's snout and surfacing quite often. As always, all good things must come to an end, so we ran out of time and had to head back to the harbour. We tried to see the humpbacks again, but they were gone. Instead we admired Reykjavik's skyline in the sunset. What a great tour. 

- Kylie Veal  

Great northern diver, eider duck, northern fulmar, great black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, black-headed gull, black-legged kittiwake, black guillemot, common guillemot, European shag