Tour status: RUNNING
Tour at 20:30
Report from Eldey: The sea state has now become very still and we had really nice whale watching conditions to begin with. First we saw a very interesting sight: two lone white-beaked dolphins were traveling with no other dolphins in sight. When we had enough of them and they had enough of us, we decided to go further. Not 15 minutes went by and we had a exquisite encounter with a minke whale. The cetacean was clearly interested in the boat, because it passed only 2 m away from our starboard side in a obvious relaxed fashion. The tour was not over with this cutie, as there was still an adult minke whale to be seen, playing hide and seek with us in the middle of the bay. On the way back we were entertained by our musician Simon, who played some smooth tunes for us on his guitar.
-Lucas Heinrich
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: As it was earlier today, the fog was very present near the beginning of our tour, but that didn't prevent us from having an excellent tour in the bay. Barely half an hour after having left the harbour, we saw a humpback whale tail slapping! We stayed with the humpback a while, watching it move graciously, diving and resurfacing several times. A bit further out was a pod of at least 5 white-beaked dolphins too! We left the humpback and spent some more time closer the white-beaked dolphins. Shortly after, we had an encounter with the third species of the tour: a minke whale! We had some really exciting sightings, as it surfaced frequently and close to us. On our way back to the harbour, we met a second pod of white-beaked dolphins, feeding very close to the boat. Overall a very eventful tour, full of surprises!
-Anne Moullier
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsúlan: It took us about an hour to get to a nice area where we saw our first species of the tour. A solitary humpback whale was lively searching for food in the area and even allowed us to see it's fluke. We left this animal alone and continued our search. Next we spotted a pod of maybe 7-8 white-beaked dolphins. They were in a good mood and were very active around the boat. It was easy to follow them underneath the surface as the passed near and under the haul. We said our goodbyes to this species as well and were on the lookout again. Not ten minutes passed when we saw a juvenile minke whale. This little fellow was quite the cherry on top for this afternoon tour. We also saw a few harbour porpoises. This makes this tour a "full house" situation, as we saw all the usual species that we encounter in the bay.
-Lucas Heinrich
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: And another beautiful and exciting tour was awaiting us. We sailed out in smooth conditions direction to the area we had our last sightings from the morning tour. It didn't take us so long until we saw a big blow, an arching back and a fluke rising - this was a humpback whale. We all got super excited, slowly approached the animal and stayed with it for a while as it suddenly breached out right next to our boat. It obviously caught us by surprise and we were all left with our mouth open! We stayed with the humpback whale for over half an hour, enjoying its calm presence until we decided to move on. Suddenly we encountered a little speedy minke whale who even went in for some close up looks, we could even see the white patches on its flippers shining through the water. We had to make our way back to the harbour as we started to see a pot of white-beaked dolphins, 4-6 individuals, jumping like crazy in the distance. Unfortunately we did not had the time to turn around but we could still enjoy seeing them jumping again and again. What an incredible tour!
- Sarah Kompatscher
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsúlan: Sailing out from Reykjavik, we had overcast sky and little wind. We had only sailed for twenty minutes, when we saw dolphins jumping out of the water in the horizon. Approaching them, they kept jumping and it was quite the show. When we were close, they came and checked out our boat and was leaping out from the water. It was great to see the pod of 8-10 white beaked dolphins, that included a small calf. They entertained us for quite some time. After this encounter we searched the bay further for other cetaceans, and it didn't take us long until we saw a minke whale! It was easy to predict, and it was quite relaxed while swimming. On the tour we saw a total of 2 minke whales. It was a lovely Sunday morning at Faxafloi bay.
- Mia Rasmussen
Tour at 9:00
Report from Eldey: We started the day a bit of fog but calm waters. Shortly after we left the harbour, we had our first encounter with a minke whale! The minke whale was quite small and kept surfacing regularly, a bit like a dolphin. It approached the boat and resurfaced several times very close to us, making itself easy to see for all our passengers. We eventually left the minke whale, but it wasn't long before we had our second encounter, this time with a pod of at least 6 white-beaked dolphins! The dolphins approached the boat and were bow-riding for a while, swimming under the boat and resurfacing on the other side several times. We eventually made our way back to the harbour after this fun morning out at sea.
-Anne Moullier
Birds seen on today's tours include: Atlantic puffin, manx shearwater, common guillemot, razorbill, black legged kittiwake, arctic tern, arctic skua, northern gannet, northern fulmar, lesser black-backed gull.
We are running our tours today from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík. We are expecting some rain out on the Faxa Bay today but sea conditions are favorable. We do provide all of our customers with wind- and waterproof overalls to keep them warm and dry throughout our tours. Please don't hesitate to contact our ticket office for further information, either via phone +354 5195000 or elding@elding.is
