Saturday, 19 August 2023

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00 Premium Whale tour and on our lovely vessel Eldey and Hafsúla  for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00, 17:00 and 19:00 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 | 19:00

Report from Hafsulan: great weather conditions set the premise for easy spotting today, as the sea was almost flat, the air warm and there was little to no wind - except for the part of the trip when we were the furthest from the coast. However, not many whales were in the bay at this time of the morning. It took us about an hour to sight the first individual, a skittish minke whale. This one was passing a lot of time underwater, probably looking for food, and resurfaced very briefly in different places each time, which meant that it moved around a lot while diving. Not having had a great sighting of this whale we decided to move onward to a distant blow, to see if we would have better luck this time. The sighting of this other individual went indeed better, as we managed to get much closer to it and follow it for longer; still, it spent most of its time feeding underwater, and we had to pay close attention to our sorroundings to be able to spot it when it resurfaced. Luckily, many northern gannets were also at the location, which indicated us where the fish was - thus where the whale was most likely to reappear.

Francesco

Report from Eldey: We sailed out after a lovely morning in search of some more cetaceans within our bay. This time it took a bit longer to find them. We decided to head towards the Northern gannets we could see diving again in the hope of there being some cetaceans here feeding with them. Within this area we were greeted by a fast pod of harbour porpoises who passed on our left hand side. Then up ahead we saw a minke whale. This was the first of 6-7 minkes. Some of them we could see feeding whilst other passed really close to us. At one stage we had 2 within 50m of us, one at the front and one on the left. It was very cool to see them so close and hear them breathing. We then had to head home, with one last pod of porpoises passing by us, after a beautiful afternoon.

- Alex Paumier

Report from Eldey: We sailed out through the calm sea in this beautiful morning, expecting the sightings to be as good as the conditions. Off the bat, we had the chance to see 10 harbour porpoises in 2 pods which surfaced quite regularly so we had a great chance to see them. This was soon followed by a pod of 6 white beaked dolphins. We stayed with them for a while seeing them jump a few times. There was even a couple of juveniles in the pod. Reaching further out in the bay, we found a lone minke whale. It was a bit tricky to track at first but then appeared very close to us a few times which was great. Then we could see several flocks of birds, mainly Northern gannets that were plunge diving. We got closer to see them and this was definitely the place to be as we got to see 2 more minke whales coming close to our boat.

- Rob Hyman 

Report from Hafsulan: We sailed out in the windy afternoon, hoping to reiterate yesterday and this morning's good sightings. As we looked for activity further out, a group of Northern gannets indicate us the main show of our tour: a minke whale appeared to us, slowly going on about, unlike most minke. We had the chance to stay for a prolonged time with this individual, as it reappeared consecutively without much disturbance in front of us. As this whale seemed to log for quite long, we finally decided to leave it be and head back home.

-Lasse Roggenkamp

Report from Eldey: We sailed out into the night, with little to no waves and wind picking up as we went out of the bay. Taking some long time to get to an active spot, we were happily surprised to finally find our coveted prize: for over 30 minutes, several minke whales roamed around the boats whilst Northern gannets plunged into the water, everyone on a feeding frenzy. 4 of these minke whales came up close enough to us that everyone could fully see, hear and enjoy their presence. As we headed back home, thinking the show was done, a pod of 4 white beaked dolphins followed our boat from afar. One of these dolphins jumped out of the water very actively for several minutes, before him and his comrades left our company, with everyone on the boat in awe of this incredible sunset sighting. 

- Lasse Roggenkamp

Northern Gannet, Atlantic puffin, sooty shearwater, manx shearwater, herring gull, glaucous gull, lesser and great black back gull