Sunday, 17 September 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, 13:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00, 14:00

Report from Eldey: mixed feelings about this tour. The weather was nice and warm most of the time, with a lot of sun and not too much wind. The waves were very tall though, about 1.5 to 2.5 mt high, which gave a hard time to a lot of passengers. It took us more than an hour to find the first whale of the day, a minke whale, which showed up briefly only once to then disappear straight away, never to be seen again. After this brief an unsatisfactory sighting we sailed on, only to find another minke whale that behaved in the same way. Feeling hopeless, we moved again, going more and more offshore. When we were almost out of time and almost on our way back, we found an active pod of white beaked dolphins (about three individuals), which were jumping out of the water right in front of our ship. Together with the dolphins there was a nice minke whale, which was way easier to observe than the previous ones. The dolphins hanged out close to our ship for some time, which gave us a chance to observe them properly. Shortly after that we had to return back to the harbor, and on our way back it started to pour rain, which concluded our nice trip with wet clothes.

- Francesco

Report from Eldey: We set sail this afternoon with the sun creeping through the clouds. The sea was a little calmer than on the morning tour but there were more whitecaps. After sailing for about one hour we saw a pod of white beaked dolphins jumping on our right hand side. There was 5-6 individuals in this pod. They were showing off their acrobatic skills for a couple minutes until we got closer. They then started to approach us and began bow riding. This gave us a great view of the beautiful pattern on their body. During this sighting we also saw a minke whale appear at our front. It surfaced 3 times before disappearing but as it was swimming to the left we still had a good view of it. We then stayed with the dolphins a little longer before carrying on. Later in the tour we came across another pod of dolphins. This pod had 10-15 individuals including a couple of calves. They behaved very similarly to the first pod where they came very close to us. It was another great sighting of dolphins. On our way home the weather turned as it got very windy and rainy bringing everyone inside as we approached the harbour after a great tour.

-Rob Hyman