Saturday, 12 March 2022

Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00 and 13:00 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 | 13:00

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. Masks are mandatory in areas where keeping 1 meter distance from others is not possible.

Report from Eldey: What an amazing morning! The bay was full of life, with fish, sea birds, white-beaked dolphins and three humpback whales. We spotted an exceptionally big flock of birds plunge diving and feeding at the surface, and among the birds we spotted a big blow. This blow clearly belonged to a humpback whale, so we were excited to approach the individual. Although the whale was not diving a long time, it surfaced very far away from where it went down, which made us think there were probably multiple individuals in the area. Inspecting the photographs, we distinguished three different dorsal fins and flukes, which shows us that there were three humpbacks. We enjoyed each of them as they came close to our boat, sometimes surfacing right beside us. When we were about to leave, we were surprised by a pod of 5-6 white-beaked dolphins! We watched the dolphins for a while with the humpback whales still in the background, and when it was time to head back to Reykjavík the dolphins swam with us for a bit of the way. We were so happy to have enjoyed these wonderful moments together with everyone on board and it was fantastic to see such a diversity of wildlife in the bay.

- Eline van Aalderink

Report from Eldey: The wind picked up a bit this afternoon, but we still had a very smooth sail and it wasn’t too cold. We didn’t have to go far until we had our first sighting: a pod of 7 white-beaked dolphins! There was a young with the group, and we enjoyed watching the small dolphin pop their head out of the water. The rest of the pod was also really fun to watch, especially when they came close to our boat and were even bowriding for a while. When the dolphins started travelling away from us and picked up their swimming speed, we decided to leave them alone and see what else was in the bay. Five minutes later, our captain spotted the blow of a humpback whale! It was one of the individuals that we had seen this morning, so we were happy to spend some more time with this whale. Although the whale was surfacing unpredictably in the beginning and surprising us at unexpected places around the boat, after a while the surfacing pattern became more regular and we had a great encounter. The dives were not long so we didn’t have to wait too long between surfaces, and sometimes we heard the whales breath very close to our boat so it was amazing to get such a close view of this beautiful animal. The final surface was the best one: the humpback came up just a few meters from the port of the boat and showed us its tail, a fantastic ending to a wonderful tour.

- Eline van Aalderink

Red-throated diver, eider duck, European shag, kittiwake, herring gull, glaucous gull, northern fulmar