Status Tour at 17:00 and 20:30 (5PM and 20:30): CANCELLED
Due to unfavourable conditions at sea we unfortunately have to cancel our Whale Watching Tour at 17:00 this afternoon. I you like to reschedule or have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact our ticket office at +354 519 5000 or via e-mail at elding@elding.is.
Tour at 14:00
Report from Eldey: The wind definitely picked up during today making our afternoon tours a bit more bumpy than in the morning. It started a bit difficult for us with a pod of ca. 4-5 white-beaked dolphins. We only saw them a couple of times and then they headed off and disappeared. Just a few minutes later we came across another group of about 5-6 individuals. We saw them a few times but they went for long dives inbetween and also kept a distance of at least 200 m from us. They were clearly not in the mood to stay around us or allow us to get closer, and therefore we left them in peace and continued our search. For a long time we didn´t see any more signs of cetaceans but in the end we checked out a flock of birds that we saw in the distance. And as we got closer, we saw a minke whale in the middle of all the birds! We spent some time there and just watched this minke whale surfacing around these birds and feeding. Once it was even rolling at the surface with its fluke sticking out of the water. And during all the chaos with the birds, we noticed a second minke whale that seemed to be feeding in the same spot. We got some nice looks at them, they surfaced just 50 m away at times and didn´t seem to care about us. Windy but wonderful!
- Hanna Michel
Tour at 13:00
Report from Hafsulan: Conditions we fairly rough today with winds coming from south-east. On our way to our main sighting area, we saw lots of Atlantic puffins on the way which was quite nice. After about 1 hour / 1 hour and 20 minutes, we spotted two big flocks of feeding sea birds close to each other, which we sailed towards to check it out. After maybe 10 minutes of observing this flock, we had a minke whale pop up very close to the birds. This whale surfaced a few times around the flock of sea birds before we were lucky enough to see it launch feed and come out of the water head-first. We continued to stay around this area with sea birds going crazy on the sand eels in the water. The minke was spotted again a few times and once even as close as a meter from the boat, just underneath the water surface. After a while we decided to sail on and look for more different species. After the minke whale, we weren't very successful and even though we spotted a pod of two white-beaked dolphins, they disappeared right after they came up. On our way back, facing strong winds, we were lucky again to spot another pod of about 5 dolphins. We were able to get a better look at these guys, as they were swimming quite close to our boat. After watching these fairly calm animals, we decided to sail back as winds were increasing.
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 10:00
Report from Eldey: Today the weather conditions were like they should be in the north Atlantic: rough seas and lots of wind, but it didn´t scare us at all we felt confident enough to sail these wild waters. The beginning of the trip started with a mild ride because we had the wind coming from our back but as soon as we were further out in the middle of the bay and we were exposed to the elements, things turned around. But it didn´t mean that all of us weren't´t involve in spotting animals because some of our passengers were able to see one of the most elusive species that we have in Faxafloi, the little and tiny harbour porpoise. It was one single individual traveling around and doing what porpoises are doing better, disappearing quite fast! Nonetheless, we went a little bit further and we started to see big flocks of birds. Today, birds activity was crazy, they were extremely busy hunting some food so we decided to follow them because it is always a good sign in order to find cetaceans and we were right. As soon as we got closer to the birds we started to see minke whales popping around from now and then in every direction. we count at least 6 individuals during the whole tour. But it isn't´t the number what matters, because we were lucky to observe a rare behaviour: head-slapping; which it´s associated with a feeding technique as far as the whale was probably following its prey from the bottom to the surface and we were able to see half of its body outside of the water, it was incredible! After this amazing encounter, we tried to return to Reykjavik but in the way a pod of 5-6 white-beaked dolphins crossed in front of us and we were delighted with them because some were jumping out of the water. In the end, it was more than worthy to go for a whale-watching, despite the initial weather conditions.
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 09:00
Report from Hafsulan: The conditions this morning were definitely not as good as yesterday - and yet, not as bad as predicted! Since the wind was blowing from the south east we enjoyed a smooth sailing on our way in to the bay. Although it was cold, we didn't have the rain to worry about this time so overall was a nice starting of the day. The first thing we encountered was a pod of 4-5 white beaked dolphins. And again, it looked like they encountered us! After we glimpsed the first dorsal fin far away, we realized that in fact we had one dolphin just swimming underneath us! Then the rest of the pod join that one and checked on our boat for a few minutes. Looks like they found a little bit of food because they ceased in caring about us and they started to swim faster, jump, leap and reverse breach, a typical behaviour of feeding dolphins. We left them in peace for a while and we went in search of the whales. We came upon an area with at least 3-4 minke whales that were, as well, feeding. Although a little bit hard at the beginning, we reached to see the whales less than 100 m away during a few surfacings. To end this amazing tour we also had a small pod of 3-4 harbour porpoises leaping like crazy on the left side of the boat. A really enjoyable tour!
- Alberto Alejandro
Bird species seen on today's tours include: northern gannet, northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull, arctic skua, GREAT SKUA, arctic tern, razorbill, common guillemot, atlantic puffin, and eider duck.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík today. We have south-easterly wind that will be increasing by the day. The sea conditions should be ok in the morning but the wind might be picking up a bit by the day. If you are sensitive to sea sickness, we do provide sea sickness tablets, free of charge! We hope you are able to join us on the search of these magnificent animals in their natural environment.
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