Thursday, 11 April 2024

Today we will be operating our Classic Whale Watching on our lovely vessel Hafsúlan at 9:00 and 13:00. OurPremium Whale Watching at 9:00 has been cancelled but are pending at 12:00 and 15:00. 

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 13:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 9:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 12:00, 15:00

Report from Hafsulan: The day started with a bit of wind and light rain but we were confident we were goin to find the whale seen the day prior, so we sailed out to the same area and searched methodically. After 20 min we found it!! a humpback whale!! The whale was swimming gently close to the islands showing the fluke multiple times as it swam between the boats!! The dives were not very long about 3-5 min which gave us the opportunity to follow it for a while! We also rapidly understood it was the same whale as the one recorded on the day before, due to the evident nick on the dorsal fin! Then as the other boats joined us we decided we were going o leave this whale and search for more species. After just 10 min a passenger spotted something in the water... A minke whale ! We know that minkes can be quite shy so we approached it carefully, but this minke was in a very good mood and continued to resurface multiple times, close to the boat, given us the opportunity to see it very well!! We stayed with this whale for about 15-20 minutes and then started our way back to the harbour. But we still had some time to get closer to the islands to see a huge flock of Atlantic puffins flying all around us!! As we left we still got another look to our dear humpback whale which was resting and diving slowly in the same area! We saw one last fluke and then returned to port! 

- Maria Ernesto

Report from Hafsulan: After a lovely morning with a humpback close to the islands we had heard it had left this area so we headed straight out into the deeper parts of the bay. On our journey out we saw a quick pod of 5 harbour porpoises which surfaced a few times quite far away from us. Not too long after this we were greeted by a large pod of white beaked dolphins. There was about 15-20 individuals in this pod. Most of the time they looked like they were resting but every so often they would speed up and jump a few times. They came really close to us too. We then headed on and saw 2 blows ahead of us. One from a very elusive minke whale that only surfaced a couple of times, but the other was from the same humpback whale as this morning. It had travelled a really long way in between these tours. We watched as it swam really close to us and fluke dived many times. Then all of a sudden it breached out of the water creating a huge splash! It was so cool. 2 days in a row this humpback has breached for us now. We watched it for a bit longer before leaving it be. On our way back we came across another elusive minke whale before another that surfaced a lot closer to Reykjavik. What a great afternoon :)

- Rob Hyman

Common guillemot, black guillemot, Atlantic puffin, Northern fulmar, black legged kittiwake, purple sandpipers, eider ducks, greylag geese, European shag, Great cormorant, herring gull, great black backed gull, razorbill