Saturday, 10 June 2023

 Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 12:00 and 14:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey and Hafsúla for the 09:00, 10:00, 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
• 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

Report from Eldey: The sun was shining and at least in the harbour the waters looked calm but this can deceive very often, depending on the Icelandic weather! Further out the waves got a bit more choppy but the weather was not less sunny. We sailed out into the bay admiring the beautiful landscape and many seabirds around us and we focused on many flocks of birds around us. We saw a small blow amongst them and we saw a minke whale! We waited for it to come up again and it surprisingly popped up in front of the boat, very close to us. With the sun shining, we could easily see its white patches on the pectoral fins under the surface. We continued our trip and later on we could see more minkes in the distance, about 5 of them in total, one of them lunge feeding in the distance, next to the birds. However, in general, the passengers couldn't get a good look at the whales and we decided to give out complimentary tickets for another chance of coming back and seeing our favorite animals again.

- Milla Brandao

Report from Elding : It was under the nice icelandic summer sun and some wind that we started our sail this morning. The sea was a bit rocky, we had a bit of swell, but nothing preventing us from looking for cetaceans. After some time we saw a blow in the distance it was a humpback whale ! This whale was a bit shy and did not have a lot of breaths before coming down for deeper dives, we still got to see it 2 times really close to the boat ! After some time with this animal we continued our way and saw 3 other individual humpback whales, one of them even showing its tail in the distance. All the whales were slightly shy today but we still got lucky to observe at least 4 different humpback whales : overall quite a good tour despite the waves ! 

- Mélanie

Report from Eldey: We sailed far out feeling the cold winds coming from the west on our faces, but what a sunny afternoon we had! We sailed and admired the landscape and there we saw it, a blow! This blow was of a humpback whale. Unfortunately this whale was very shy and never showed up again. While we were waiting for it to come up we saw another species though, a minke whale! This one was not alone but both of these animals were as shy as the humpback whale. Near another boat we even saw a second humpback whales blow. In the beginning it was as elusive as the other ones. We were ready to give up but then it got closer and we got a very nice glimpse of its glistening body in the lovely summer sun. As a special surprise 3-4 white-beaked dolphins decided to add to this spectacle by jumping out of the water, so very high! They gave us quite the show until it was time to head back home. But this was not all, a third humpback made itself shown close to another boat of ours and we had time to pass by it on our way back. As a last goody a third minke made a quick appearance just in front of us. So we saw all the three species and about 3 individual humpbacks and 3 minkes. What a tour!

-  Windy Cindy

Report from Elding: We sailed out under the lovely sun. It was quite a choppy outward journey  full of whitecaps, but we did see many puffins! After about an hour we saw a blow right next a RIB. This belonged to a humpback whale! This whale gave us a great show under the sun. It came quite close to the boat a few times. It also showed us it's fluke which was beautiful to see. Seeing the white pectoral fins along with the rest of the body through the water was very cool. After this sighting we headed home with the sea conditions starting to worsen, but we still had a fantastic tour.

- Rob Hyman

Atlantic puffin, Northern fulmar, Northern gannet, Black-backed gull, Black-legged kittiwake, Black guillemot, Arctic tern, Eider duck, arctic skua, herring gull.

Report from Eldey: what an incredible tour it was! After having tours of tricky and elusive whales during the day, they surprised us in the evening! We sailed out to the same area where we saw the whales in the previous tour. On the way, we saw the glimpse of a harbour porpoise on our front. Once we got to the area, we kept our eyes sharp for any sign of the blow. And there it was! A blow of a humpback whale caught our attention, but what really hooked us was the big splashes that she was doing. This individual was breaching like crazy, repeatedly. Coming closer, it stopped breaching, but we realized it wasn't alone: a pod of about 6 white-beaked dolphins was keeping it company, jumping a lot and interacting with the humpie. After they left, the whale started breaching again and again. Wow... what a show! It was about 10 breaches in a row, and we couldn't get enough. We sailed back home very happy and jumping like this humpie.

- Milla Brandao