Tour at 17:00
Report from Elding: Wind picked up a bit more for our tour, and with this came slight choppiness but overall our spotting conditions remained untouched, with still good visibility and slow waves. Yet it took us time before spotting cetaceans, it was only in the second half of our tour that we spotted a pod of about 10 white-beaked dolphins. It was a fascinating encounter as the dolphins were displaying what we assume was feeding behaviour, alternating long deep dive for herding the fish with quick surfacing in every directions and changes in trajectory. They also took a break to check on us before getting back to their dolphin business. The icing on the cake was that we recognized one of these individuals as Funny, one of our regulars here with a specific bite mark on the frontal edge of the dorsal fin. The encounter lasted for a while, before we had to head back home.
- Guillaume Calcagni
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: After a great morning tour we were quite optimistic about the afternoon tour and headed out again in good mood and spirit. However, this tour taught us all a lesson on how unpredictable wildlife can be even under the best conditions. We searched all the areas in which we saw animals on the morning tour and also the last few days. The bay looked kind of empty, though, with barely any birds around. After ca. 1,5 hours we came across 4-5 harbour porpoises and this small species of cetaceans remained the only one we got to see on our tour. To be fair, we a great look at them and encountered lots of them on the way back as well (total 30-40). But there was no sign of dolphins or whales around. Another boat had spotted a minke whale and we headed to that area, but the individual had left the area or stayed underwater for a very long time. As we were running out of time, we had to start heading back to land but at least got some more nice looks at harbour porpoises before we offered everyone onboard complimentary tickets. These tickets are valid for another whale watching tour within two years and can be used in Reykjavik or in Akureyri in the North of Iceland.
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: Today was another great day with a flat sea and perfect spotting conditions for us! And the morning tour started with a group of about 6-8 sleepy white-beaked dolphins. We saw them a few hundred meters in front of us not long after leaving Reykjavik behind us. The group split up into two smaller groups and we could watch both of them for a while. They were very calm and the individuals of each group (one of them our regular seen dolphin "Sophie") stayed very close to each other when they were breaching the surface, as dolphins often do it when they are resting. However, they didn't seem to be to prone of having us around them and after a dive often come up a couple of hundred meters away. Therefore, we decided to leave them in peace and head further out. But these were not the only dolphins we got to see on this tour, just a few minutes later we saw a few more of them in the distance. It was another group of 4 individuals of this dolphin species, including a mom with her very curious calf that approached us up to a few meters and obviously was not scared of us at all. It's always awesome to see the calves checking us out. After this group of dolphins we kept searching for a looong time and came across tens of harbour porpoises. They were all over the place today and thanks to the flat we actually good a pretty nice look at them. The tour total of porpoises was probably at least 40-50. And finally we also saw a minke whale! At first, it surfaced in the distance and went for a long dive but after a couple of minutes it returned to the surface where we saw it two more times before it disappeared. We waited for this individual but it stayed submerged for such a long time that we headed over to another boat that had also found a minke whale and we managed to see that individual for a few times before starting our way back. Heading back to Reykjavik, we suddenly saw a large group of 20-25 dolphins ahead of us. The group headed straight towards us at high speed but got slower as they approached us. And then suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by all of these white-beaked dolphins that were going back and forth and circled around us. A great opportunity for some more memorable pictures before heading home!
- Hanna Michel
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, arctic skua, atlantic puffin, herring gull, black-legged kittiwake, common guillemot, arctic tern, lesser black-backed gull, manx shearwater and eider duck.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. There is little to no wind but a bit chilly. We have heated indoor areas on board but we also have overalls to keep you warm out on deck. We are looking forward to welcoming you to our tour!
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