Monday, 31 July 2023

 Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tour and on our lovely vessel Eldey, Hafsúla and Elding  for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 20:30 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
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 16:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 20:30

Report from Eldey: We started them tour under unique weather conditions. Shinny sun and no wind at all. The bay looked like a pool. As we sailed out we could spot 3 harbor porpoises. Some time later, we got to a spot in which there were a lot of birds flying around and then we realized about the presence of around 8 minke whales in the same area. Suddenly, we saw a fluke dive in the distance. It was from a humpback whale. We approached it and quicky realized that it was probably a young individual since it was extremely small. We spent some time surrounded by all of them and then we decided to head back to Reykjavik.

-Nicolás Corral

Report from Hafsúlan: we had a lovely morning with our favorite animals today! The sea was flat and the sun was shining, even though it was hidden by a thin layer of clouds. Not 5 min after we left the harbour, we had our first encounter with 2 harbour porpoises! The sea was so flat that we had no problem tracking it down. Continuing our trip, we got to an area where many different big flocks of birds were, and we could spot a long and white pectoral fin waving at us. We had a humpback whale in the area! Beautifully going for deeper dives, this whale was going towards one of the flock of birds. It scared them all when it came out of the surface, the mouth wide open and eating the fish underneath the birds! Even when this whale was underwater for a few minutes, there were so much going on around us: about 8 minke whales around us lunge feeding as well, sometimes coming very close, showing off their beautiful colors, also the many noisy seabirds fighting for food and even 3 white-beaked dolphins that came to say hello. We decided to left these whales after a good amount of time with them, but we knew that the trip was not even close to be over: heading back to Reykjavik, we spotted about 10 jumping dolphins from a distance, and getting closer to them, we saw we had juveniles jumping like crazy with the adults. They passed underneath our boat and showed off when coming to the surface at the same time, all synced up. We headed back to the harbour feeling the sun hitting our faces and really satisfied with our great morning.

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: We set off on calm seas again, but this time the sun was shining! Such great weather. After sailing for a period of time we saw 2 minke whales further away from us, one on each side. We got a very brief look at them as we carried on to where we could see hundreds of seabirds feeding. Once we arrived here we saw another 10 minkes. They were popping up everywhere, it was so nice. Everyone got a fantastic look at this beautiful cetacean. In the middle of this we then saw a fluke which we realised belonged to a humpback whale. We saw it fluke dive twice before leaving. We kept our distance and then left quickly because there was too many boats near the whale. So we carried on and saw another 3 minkes. We did also see 2 pods of 4 harbour porpoises that surfaced a few times close to the boat. It was a lovely tour in lovely conditions.

- Rob Hyman

Report from Hafsulan:  Yet another awesome day at sea. The conditions couldn´t have been better with mirror like sea. Our first encounter happened quite early on, 3 harbour porpoises surface straight in front of our boat but only 2 times before disappearing. We headed towards an area where we had seen cetaceans on earlier tour. As we arrived 3 big flocks of birds were feeding and soon enough we noticed black bodies rising to the surface, at least 6 minke whales were seen along with 1 humpback whale. All were clearly feeding. The humpback was a bit difficult, traveling as well as eating, popping up all of a sudden some distance where he was last seen. But we did get good look at it and it showed us it´s fluke a couple of times. No more cetaceans were seen on the way to harbour but we stopped for a bit at Engey island to take a look at the puffins residing there. Lovely tour on a lovely day. 

-Kristín Rós

Report from Elding: The sunset promised to be wonderful tonight as the midnight sun was shining brightly over the relatively calm bay. We sailed to the area where we had had success in the afternoon, and we did find one minke whale there but he was tricky to follow. After some time waiting for the minke whale to resurface, and realising he had probably traveled far underwater, we continued our search. We stumbled upon another individual minke whale, but he was in a similar mood as the first one we had seen. We crossed many areas of the bay, sometimes finding puffins running across the water or northern gannets taking off into the sunset - but the whales were hard to find tonight. We therefore gave our passengers complimentary tickets so that everyone will have a better chance to experience the wildlife of Faxaflói. 

- Eline van Aalderink