Sunday , 12 June 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 and 12:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00 and 14:00. 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
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00

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.

Report from Hafsúlan: A fantastic sunny sailor's day to be out in the Faxaflói bay. During this tour we met two humpback whales, and we were able to see three more at the distance! The first one proved to be tricky to follow, lucky for us eventually it surfaced very close to us, less than 30 meters away from us allowing us to get some nice shots. The second one was swimming very relaxed, which made us think that it could have been sleeping. Today humpback was giving us easy time when was going for just 3 minutes dives. Luckily, our captain Otto has a great intuition and we had few close encounters with the best moment when whale raised his fluke in slow-motion right next to our boat. Although we spotted three other humpbacks not so far away we decided to stay put and enjoy the presence of this individual until heading back to land. What a beautiful tour!

- Estel Sanchez

Report from Elding: Such nice sightings today during this 3 hours tour for my first guiding at Elding. The sea conditions were very good so easy for us to spot the animals in the bay. After 40 mins, we started to spot our first humpback whale which was mostly feeding at the beginning as it was diving several times for 5 mins. At the end, the animal was more chilling at the surface. We decided to leave the individual alone and tried to find something else interesting in the area. We heard from other whale watching operators that other humpback whales were in the area and after 10 mins we managed to spot 2 humpback whales, 2 adults together. We were very lucky with those 2 guys as they showed us the most incredible and rare behaviour. They were indeed spy hopping many times around our boat, being very curious and social. They showed us several times their fluke up in the air for few seconds and stayed very close to the surface. They were clearly doing the show at this moment and we were very blessed and lucky to experience this incredible sighting. After 10 mins spending with them, it was time to head back to Reyjkavik. First guiding that went pretty well.

- Enorha Guimard 

Report from Hafsúlan: As the sun glared down on the calm seas we rode through the waves on a quest to find whales. Not too far from port we discovered our first humpback whale, who was so happy to see us it couldn't stop waving at us. It even came right up next to the boat giving us a lovely view of its pleated throat grooves, tubercles and eye. Sadly due to more boats arriving in the area we decided to leave the animal alone and move on. We had some great spotters today and even a couple of marine biologists as passengers on board, and they did a great job spotting not only a pod of 4 harbour porpoise zooming past the boat but also the next couple of whale blows. We managed to stay with 2 more whales who were taking long dives to feed, while also spotting more blows on the horizon, and even a pair of whales together. Sadly as we were running out of time we decided to slowly leave these individuals when suddenly behind us the whale breached! So turning the boat around we tried to stay a little longer and see if it happened again, but the cheeky bugger loved messing with us and resumed it's diving behaviour. So we began heading back to port with a great story to tell about 3 humpback whales seen up close, another 4 in the distance, a pod of harbour porpoises and a beautiful day at sea!

- Liam van Walsum

Report from Elding: beautiful day at sea, today, with a warm sun shining on the ship. Even with the wind blowing from our 12 o'clock (front of the ship) I was able to stay on the top of the ship without an overall for most of the time. The sea was pretty calm, giving good spotting conditions and a comfortable trip. It wasn't long before we saw some splashes from afar: a humpback whale was lazily slapping its fluke and pectoral fins, going for deeper dives from time to time, and generally being very comfortable around us. We were able to stay with it for a long while, being able to admire it from up close, from time to time. We then left it alone; the trip back was calm and relaxing, with none to little wind.

-Francesco Golin

Report from Hafsúlan: The sailing was lovely this afternoon, with not wind at all and pretty calm sea. We started off with difficulty as I could not stop laughing as I was describing the clock system there was puffins in every direction and all I could think about was a puffin clock. We continued the tour with one, two, three, four, five, SIX humpback whales! The first one was a massive creature and it was swimming . The second one was just epic, tail breaching in front of us throughing its tail stock laterally out of the water. It also lobtailed and performed inverted lobtailing, by slapping its fluke onto the water's surface. We saw more whales at the distance but then we focused on the fifth one as it was closer. This individual was tail slapping too and we thought that those two individuals might be communicating somehow with these behavior. We decided to come close and check it out. Some passengers suggested we call this one temporarly George, which was very suitable for that whale. The sixth one was further away and we saw it while enjoying the presence of George. The way back brought us a pod of white-beaked dolphins, there were about 7 in total, there were traveling. A fantastic experience in the bay.

Estel Sanchez

Report from Eldey: First midnight of the season and already a great success. We needed a bit of time to get to the good areas where we found the animals, but it was a pleasant sailing with a calm sea and very little wind. After an hour we started seeing a blow a km away. We got closer and saw at least two other individuals in the surrounding! In total we observed 7 humpback whales, 2 pairs and 3 solitary. We approached the animals and were lucky enough to see peduncle throws, breaches, fluke dives. It was an amazing show, specially the breaches that we could observe from close. We observed another humpback breach from far away and got closer. It was a pair of humpback swimming with a pod of 6-8 white-beaked dolphins interacting. It made one of the whales very active and jump and peduncle throw. The dolphins were curious about us as well and came on the right side of our boat slowly surfacing, perfect to have a good sight of them. Then the humpback whale surfaced very close of our boat, clearly interacting with us, going under our still boat, then swimming around us. What a great encounter. We went back home with a big smile on our faces, listening to music while admiring the bay enlightened by the bluish light of a summer evening.

- Miquel Pons

Eider duck, northern fulmar, Atlantic puffin, arctic tern, greater black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, common guillemot, herring gull, arctic skua, northern gannet.