Sunday, 29 October 2023

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00  and 14:00 Premium Whale tour and 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
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00

Report from Eldey: our lovely journey today started with no wind, the clearest blue skies and the smoothest sea, although it was still a bit cold. We sailed for about 30 minutes until we saw a couple of dorsal fins popping up. We had a pod of 5 white-beaked dolphins coming to us, with a calf amongst them! We enjoyed them until our eyes caught a blow in the distance. Getting there, we spotted a humpback whale, the same individual from yesterday, going for deep dives. At the same time, we could see at least 2 other more blows in the distance, so after spending a while with the first one, we decided to check a second one. This humpback seemed to be more active in the surface, but never showing the fluke when going for deep dives. We also saw a minke whale close to the humpback, joining this productive area! After a while, we came back to the first one because it started lunge feeding in front of us, taking a large gulp of water and showing off its snout. When we started heading back, another pod of at least 15 dolphins that were in the area started bowriding us, very closely, taking advantage of the waves to speed up! These curious dolphins were very playful and it seemed like we were on a race with them! We headed back to Reykjavik extremely satisfied and happy with the amazing weather and sightings of this morning!

- Milla Brandão

Report from Eldey: We set off into the bay under the glorious sun for an afternoon on flat seas! Moments after setting off as we reached Engey we saw 2 pods of harbour porpoises. Each pod had a couple of individuals but they only surfaced a few times each. We then carried on and could see some splashes. There were sooooo many white beaked dolphins. It was multiple pods within the same area. We spent our time with 2 of these pods. One of them had a calf with them along with another 3 individuals. The next pod had about 6-8. Some came very close. Now, we carried on and could see a huge blow. It belonged to a humpback whale! It surfaced many times and we got to see so many fluke dives. We also saw it lunge feeding and water spilling out of it's mouth. One time it did this about 10m from out boat. It was very cool. After spending a while with this whale we moved on. We saw a minke whale surface a few times too which was nice. We then came across another 2 humpbacks, bringing out total to 3. These were still solitary but a bit closer together. One of these would fluke dive but the other would only arch it's back. Overall, it was an incredible tour!

- Rob Hyman

Common guillemot, eider duck, herring gull, black backed gulls, northern fulmar