Sunday, 9 June 2024

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 20:00

Report from Eldey: on our first tour of the day, the weather basically screamed at us saying that the summer, that was hidden for a while, came to stay for a couple of days. The sky was blue, we had almost no clouds and the sea was calm and inviting. So we sailed out in this beautiful and good conditions ready to spot our favorite animals. We started seeing many flock of Atlantic puffins on the way, leading us to hopefully we would have loads of food and therefore... cetaceans! We first spotted a minke whale in front of us, very shy, that never came up again. We continued sailing, now spotting a big gathering of many seabirds, including Northern gannets diving. Amongst them, we spotted another minke, that wasn't alone. On our other side, there was another one that, like the others, decided to come up once. As we didn't have good sightings of any of the 3 minkes that passed by us, we decided to give out complimentary tickets so the passengers enjoy our bay once more. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our morning with a great weather and calm winds.

- Milla Brandao

Report from Hafsulan: We sailed out on a wonderful sunny day after a week of bad weather. I was especially excited as it was my first time guiding and I was eager to show all the passengers a good time, hopefully exceeding their expectations!

After a while of exploring Faxaflói Bay, we spotted a minke whale which we had the chance to see more than 5 times, one of the occasions very close to the boat. We continued on our way towards a little flock of northern fulmar and saw another minke whale, this one seemed a bit more shy than the previous one. A few moments later, next to two zodiacs we saw a pod of very friendly and playful 10-15 white-beaked dolphins. They seemed to be travelling but were very social and close to the boats, some of them were even jumping.

While we were surrounded by dolphins, we saw another minke whale. Although, this one was very shy and we didn't see it again. Very satisfied with this beautiful tour, we decided to go back to the harbor when more started to come to the vicinity, to respect the wildlife.

- Sergi Gonzalez

Report from Eldey: Just like in the morning, the tour started under optimal conditions with a beautiful sunny sky, no swell, mild wind and amazing visibility. We travelled all the way to the center of Faxafloi bay, where we found our first minke whale. While this first individual was quite elusive, just a few instants later we got lucky enough to have two other minke whales approach our boat surface multiple times at just 20 meters from us, to the great joy of our passengers. We stuck with the whales for a little while before they started to get away and we continued our journey. In the following 30 minutes, we found 3 more minke whales that we observed in a distance, as they continued their route without approaching our boat. Finally, a white-beaked dolphin appeared right in front of our boat before disappearing instants later, and we continued sailing for a little while, following the birds, before heading back to the harbour after a joyful afternoon tour. 

- Olivia Garcia

Report from Hafsulan: We set off in a good mood, with calm seas and a bright sun. After some sailing, we spotted a flock of northern gannets diving and decided to have a closer look. We stayed around for a little while, and our patience got rewarded as we got to see our first minke whale surface! We got to see them surface a few times but then they disappeared rather quickly. We continued our journey and found another minke, which surfaced right in front of the boat! Since both our sightings this afternoon ended up being rather short, we decided to hand out complementary tickets to the passengers, so they can come back and have a better look at these amazing animals soon.

- Milan Vansteelandt

Report from Eldey: When we left the harbour for our third tour of the day, the sun was still up and a mild northern wind had just appeared. We were left pretty optimistic by the many encounters we had during the previous tour. After making our way to the center of Faxafloi bay, we found a very active pod of white-beaked dolphins of about 7 individuals, that we followed for a little while. After sailing around the bay on the lookout for more species while enjoying the dramatic views we had on the Snæfellsnes peninsula and on the smoke coming from the Sundhnúkur eruption, we finally headed back to the harbour under the descending sun. 

- Olivia Garcia

black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, Arctic tern, Atlantic puffin, black guillemot, Northern gannet, Northern fulmar, great skua, herring gull, common gull, black-legged kittiwake, Eider duck