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Monday, 12 June 2023
Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 13:00, 14:00, and 17:00 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
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 12:00
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: Happy group set sail to the choppy seas of Faxaflói today. An hour into the tour loud gasps were heard from our passengers as they witnessed a jumping minke whale in the distance. It breached about 5 times but with each breach it swam further and further away from us so we never got as close to it as we wanted to and eventually is disappeared from view. We cruised around for a bit, enjoying the bird life and as we were heading back to Reykjavík, Lo and Behold, a single humpback whale surfaced and gave us a spectacular view of its fluke as it dived into the deep. Satisfied with the tour we headed back to Reykjavik harbour with smiles on our faces.
- Kristín Rós
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
Report from Eldey: If it wasn't for the swell, the sea would look like a glass this afternoon. We had a calmer sea and a calmer tour, enjoying the many Atlantic puffins on the way. We kept an eye on the area that we saw the humpback on the previous tour, but it wasn't there anymore, however, we saw a minke whale in front of us from a good distance! That was a tricky minke, apparently trying to break its own records on holding its breath. Not far from it, we saw a pod of about 6 white-beaked dolphins in front of us, and they were very sociable, coming closer and letting us enjoy them from the bow. Even when more boats came and we tried to go to another area to not disturb them, they decided to follow our way and we could have one more moment with them! Two of the individuals were physically touching a lot, in which we thought they could be mating next to us. On our way back, we spotted another minke, that was quite elusive, but we made our way home satisfied with the playing dolphins that came to say hello to our boat.
- Milla Brandao
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
Report from Skrudur: We sailed out today and the swell had dropped a little from the morning. This tour was a small group of people so that meant plenty pf space for everyone to see which was great. As we sailed out we got a few glimpses of 2 minke whales! Both were being quite elusive so we headed on. We were surrounded by so many puffins and terns and knew we were getting to a good spot. Then - a pod of 7 white beaked dolphins! They were enjoying the big swell and surfing. To our surprise a humpback whale came up directly by our boat in the middle of all the dolphins! So close we could see it clearly through the water, and heard its blow. It seemed like the dolphins were playing with the humpback whale but the humpback may have not been as amused. It always tricky to interpret! After watching on for a bit we ran out of time and had to head back to harbour. Still seeing the dolphins jumping on our way home.
Anna Richter
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
Report from Eldey: We sailed out to calmer seas heading in the direction of where we had noticed activities earlier in the day. All in all we saw 4 to 5 very elusive minke whales that surfaced few times but disappeared as quickly as they came. But one of them really took us by surprise as he surfaced underneath group of birds, mouth wide open to lunge feed straight in front the boat!! It was spectacular but the real stars of our tour were 2 pods of white beaked dolphins, 6-10 in each pod, bow riding and showing off their incredible acrobatic skills. What a day it has been!
- Kristín Rós
Birds encountered on today's tours:
Atlantic puffin, Arctic tern, Northern gannet, herring gull, black legged kittiwake, Northern fulmar, razorbills, common guillemots, black backed gulls
Wildlife encountered today:
The Humpback Whale is quite spectacular undergoing the longest migration of any mammal (5176miles/8334km one way), attracting females by singing to them and of course their energetic nature. On many occasions humpbacks have been seen breaching, tail slapping, fin slapping, blowing bubbles and spy hopping just to mention a few. The humpback is also one of the larger whales we encounter
The Minke Whale is the most common whale around Iceland and actually the world thus it is one of the main species we encounter on our whale watching tours. It is one of few species that don’t mind coming to shallower waters like here in Faxaflói Bay to feed on the abundant food available to them.
The white-beaked dolphin is the most common dolphin found in the surrounding waters of Iceland and is seen not only in the summer but winter too usually in larger numbers, hundreds sometimes. When feeding they show energetic behaviour such as breaching out of the water and coming down with a big splash and bursts of fast swimming.