Saturday, 17 August 2024

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 11:00, 13:00, 17:00, 19:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00

Report from Eldey: We headed out this morning against some fairly strong winds but luckily just like yesterday we really didn't have to wait very long before spotting blows. About 20-25 minutes from the harbour we found 2 humpback whales, with one even being Davy Jones II! We got to see both whales from very close as they regularly surfaced between dives for feeding. They both showed the fluke quite a few times too. We then left them be and went to search for more whales. We had headed further into the bay but only came across seabirds including sooty shearwaters, Northern gannets and Atlantic puffins. So we headed back to the same area as the start of the tour except now there were 4-5 humpbacks and a minke whale! We got even luckier now as we saw one breach and another peduncle throw! This was really cool and an incredible way to end the tour.

- Rob Hyman

Report from Hafsulan: We left the harbour with a boat full of passengers who had come from around the world, excited to see whales. Our passengers didn´t have to wait long, as we rapidly found 2 humpback whales northeast of Reykjavík, quite close to the shore. We spent some time with them and even saw one of them breaching a few hundred meters from us. We then left these whales and continued our search, finding more whales, this time even closer to the shore, near the town of Grundarherfi, which provided a beautiful landscape view. Eventually, we ran out of time and went back home, sailing close to shore and enjoying the view of mountains and islands along the way.

-Ricardo Mendes

Report from Eldey : Our tour started on dry weather, slightly choppy seas and chilly northern wind. Today the whales ahd decided to stay around the islands ad this is where we were heading to when we spotted our two first blows in the distance. In the area were actually at least 5 humpback whales ! We took our time to go to each of them, gently observng them in the distance, unless they decided to surface closer to us. We could see at least two of them surface feeding, opening their mouth over the surface, rolling over on their belly and even showing us their pectoral fins. The three others were deep diving constantly, only coming to the surface to take a few powerful breaths, probably feeding a bit deeper in the water column. They were changing directions a lot, which sometimes made them tricky to follow and anticipate. After two hours in their company, we finally headed back to the harbour with a boat full of happy passengers. 

Olivia Garcia

Report from Eldey: Once again we didn´t have to travel far to find where the humpbacks were. The first one we stopped to watch was Davy Jones II! They were behaving quite calm and even surfaced really really close to us a few times. This is very typical of this individual. They then started to act very strange and went into even shallower waters close to land. It started to sometimes roll or lift only one part of the body out the water but not always breathing first. It was quite unusual, our hypothesis was that it was potentially scratching itself on the rocks. Humpbacks have been seen to do this before in Australia as a way to remove dead skin or parasites. After a bit Davy came back into deeper waters and was acting more normally. We then left them and came across more humpbacks very fast. We saw another 3 including one that was lunge feeding. There were even more humpbacks we didn´t get the chance to see, we guessed 5-6 in this area. There was clearly lots of food as we saw many Arctic terns feeding as well. It had been a very cold tour so we then headed back and everyone ran inside to warm up after a great evening.

- Rob Hyman

Report from Elding: amazing end of the day! What an incredible day of whale watching it has been! It was with challenging conditions as it was highly windy all day, but the whales were very near our marina so we did not have to go far to find them. Right out of harbour, by Videy island, we saw the first humpback whale! And then we moved on a little bit and we found another two! That made a total of 3 individuals. They were delightful, spending lots of time on the surface and doing fluke dives repeatedly, and rolling over constantly. They seemed to really enjoy the attention. We stayed with them the whole time, until it was time to head back. With a glorious sunset for a frame, it was a very successful tour.

- Rodrigo Ruiz Esquide

Atlantic puffin, northern gannet, northern fulmar, greylag goose, eider duck, arctic tern, arctic skua, sooty shearwater, great black backed gull, lesser black backed gull, herring gull, black headed gull, black legged kittiwake, common guillemot, black guillemot