Saturday, 25 November 2023
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 | 9:00
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: It was warmer than the last few days this morning, with wind blowing from the east the sea was quite pleasant even with a bit of the swell. The sun was rising during our way out painting the clouds with gorgeous pink and orange colours. We arrived in an area with a lot of birds and soon spotted a lot of animals. First a shy pod of 3 white-beaked dolphins, that was appearing a few times around the boat but soon were diving and moving to much for us to be able to follow them. We kept going and spotted a blow from a humpback whale! This humpback was feeding near active flocks of bird, lunge feeding under them, giving us a beautiful show. It went also for a few fluke dives, showing smoothly the tail. There was also a minke whale that came up a few times also probably eating some nice fish for breakfast. We spotted a second humpback well a bit closer to Reykjavik and went to observe it. This one disappeared quickly and after waiting a bit we went back to the harbour.
- Miquel Pons
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
Report from Eldey: This afternoon we set sail once again into a moody bay. We wanted to try our luck once more in the area we were at in the morning. We arrived to our hotspot and saw 3 harbour porpoises pop out. They stayed with us for a few moments but shortly vanished. We also spotted a larger cetacean that came up for air. This was likely a small humpback whale, but was tricky to say as it only came up twice briefly. We did a little loop around to see if we could find something else but without success. We then went to Viderjarflak to see if we would have more luck there but were once again unsuccessful. Its always an adventure when you go whale watching but that also means sometimes we are less fortunate. For this reason we gave out complimentary tickets so that everyone can try again.
- Anna Richter
Bird species seen today include:
Glaucus gull, black-backed gull, black-headed gull, black-legged kittiwake, Northern fulmar, eider duck, long-tailed duck, razorbill, black guillemot, common guillemot, Northern gannet, European shag, sooty shearwater .
Wildlife encountered today:
The Humpback Whale is quite spectacular undergoing the longest migration of any mammal (5176miles/8334km one way), attracting females by singing to them and of course their energetic nature. On many occasions humpbacks have been seen breaching, tail slapping, fin slapping, blowing bubbles and spy hopping just to mention a few. The humpback is also one of the larger whales we encounter
The Minke Whale is the most common whale around Iceland and actually the world thus it is one of the main species we encounter on our whale watching tours. It is one of few species that don’t mind coming to shallower waters like here in Faxaflói Bay to feed on the abundant food available to them.
The white-beaked dolphin is the most common dolphin found in the surrounding waters of Iceland and is seen not only in the summer but winter too usually in larger numbers, hundreds sometimes. When feeding they show energetic behaviour such as breaching out of the water and coming down with a big splash and bursts of fast swimming.
The Harbour Porpoise is the smallest and most abundant cetacean around Iceland. They are usually shy but occasionally they come and play around the boats. They can be relatively hard to spot from a distance due to their size and their abundance depends entirely on the food availability of our shores since they are opportunistic feeders.