Monday, 13 June 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 and 12:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00 and 14:00. 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 | 12:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00

COVID-19: Keep in mind that passengers and crew are asked to ensure their own hygiene and safety at all times. Washing hands thoroughly with soap and using a hand sanitiser is advised.

Report from Eldey : Today the sky was quite overcast when we started our sail, proper Reykjavik weather. The swell was almost inexistant, that made the ride really comfortable through Faxafloi bay. It took only 30 minutes to spot our first blow through binoculars. We got closer and got to observe a humpback whale resting in the surface for a few minutes, it was a lovely sighting and as a nice surprise another whale, much smaller, just showed up on its side. It was a mom and a calf pair, quite unusual for Iceland as we get mostly older whales around here to feed. It was beautiful to see that mom and that baby. After a nice view of this pair, we spotted 2 more blows in the distance, after some minutes of surfacing sequences we got to observe some magnificent breaches. It was impressive to see those 2 individuals breaching so close to us. After a while we decided to sail off and found another individual humpback whale, but as our time ran of we could not stay too long with that individual and headed back toward the harbour, with a lot of nice memories.

- Melanie Magnan

Report from Elding: The sea was calm today with maximum 1 meter of swell and not a lot of wind. But this southern wind brought humidity and rain. Well protected in our overalls we were still happy to stay outside to have many great sightings. We went quite far before we saw our first blow, but then they were everywhere. In total we observed 5 different humpback whales, but there was more in the surroundings with blows visible in the distance. We started with a pair of humpbacks, a big one that showed us a beautiful fluke covered in black stripes, and a smaller one much more shy that was not showing its tail. We stayed a bit a continued to see different humpbacks that were close. That's when we met another small and curious individual that was spy-hoping close to the boat, doing some human-watching or boat-watching. The animal came very close it felt very special. We continued a found a second pair of humpback whales. One of those very actively threw its tail out of the water in a dynamic peduncle throw! Then it was much calmer and came very close of our boat. We were out of time so we had to head back to Reykjavik. Not all mondays are bad!

- Miquel Pons

Report from Eldey : The sky was still overcast as we started our second trip of the day, the swell still stayed quite inexistant but the wind had intensified offering us a pleasant but chilly ride. It is after about an hour that we observed our first individual humpback whale. That animal being quite elusive, it started to change direction a lot around the boat, seeing this behaviour we decided to leave this animal to respect the fact that this whale clearly did not want to stay around us. As we continued our trip we quickly spotted a second blow in the wind, an other humpback whale was around. We did not get much more luck with that individual compared to the first one, as we had a few looks on the breathing sequences we noticed the behaviour of the animal not being favorable to the presence of a boat around, so we decided after a few minutes to leave the animal to respect the code of conduct and also especially respect this whale. We then continued our way and spotted more blows in the distance, that is when we got our nicest sighting of a few humpback whales surrounding the vessel, with a good 4 individuals to more. We even got the luck of seeing a pedoncle slap before it was already the end of our tour. We then started to head back, in a lovely chilly icelandic rain.

- Melanie Magnan

Report from Elding: What a way to start the week! We set sail on a moody grey day, I always look forward do these days as I feel they are always an adventure. Today was no different. We left with some wind and rain but everyone was in a good mood! After a bit of distance we found Stu the humpback whale! This was a very fun individual who stayed with us and showed us his fluke. Then we decided to leave him be and shortly found Gustav, a fellow humpback whale! Gustav was very active and breached multiple times. We even saw more blows in the distance but sadly there was no time to investigate. We saw one more humpback a bit closer on the way back to harbour. 

- Anna Richter 

Report from Eldey: Despite the chilling rain and monstrous black clouds above our heads, we knew that earlier trips had uncovered a bunch of animals in the bay, so we were all excited to get out there and try to find them; little did we know it would be one of the best sightings so far this summer in Faxafloi bay. It wasn't too far out of Reykjavik that we saw our first blow on the horizon... followed by another... then 2 whale spouts shooting into the air right next to each other. We decided to head towards the closest individual and found out it was a humpback whale, taking long dives to catch food. Suddenly massive splashes could be seen on the horizon, indicating a very energetic animal, so we changed course and tried to see how close we could get. 1 blow, then some splashes, then another blow - was it the same animal? There were two? White beaked dolphins! A whale and some dolphins! It was two blows! 2 whales and a pod of dolphins! It's hard to describe the following events but I'll do my best.
The  humpback whales whales were a mother and juvenile pair, a little older than a calf but still young and playful, and the juvenile was playing with a pod of 8 white beaked dolphins, with 2 juveniles present. At one point the young whale looked like it might be trying to dolphins by leaping into the air, slapping its tail as it did so. Shortly after our arrival and seeing such a beautiful sight, the dolphins broke off and came to investigate our boat, followed shortly by both whales. We were surrounded by animals at this point and I was struggling to read out directions over the mike and take photos at the same time. The whales continued to socialise and play right next to us while the dolphins did a circle before coming back to the boat and surfing the waves. Then shortly after the whales began to calm a little and began performing dives, needing to eat to regain all the energy lost playing with us and the dolphins. 
In total we encountered 3 humpback whales up close, with another 2 sets of whale blows on the horizon, and a pod of 8 white beaked dolphins on this absolutely amazing trip.

-Liam van Walsum