Thursday, 14 July 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 14:00, 16:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 10:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 20:30 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 | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 11:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 16:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 20:30

COVID-19: Keep in mind that passengers and crew are asked to ensure their own hygiene and safety at all times. Washing hands thoroughly with soap and using a hand sanitiser is advised. Masks are not mandatory but are recommended in areas where keeping distance from others is not possible.

Report from Eldey: Iceland truly delivered today with fantastically sunny skies and little to no wind, allowing for perfect spotting and photography conditions. While searching for our first animals we discovered a blow in the distance behind another whale watching boat with some dolphins leaping out of the water next to them. However as we changed direction to head to that location a humpback whale suddenly appeared 20m from the boat, taking 3 breathes before diving again. Very quickly after this dive the white beaked dolphins we saw earlier decided to come and say hi, with about 4 individuals leaving their pod to bowride us and leap in front of us. For the next 10 minutes we enjoyed a humpback diving and surfacing again on our right, 4 dolphins right under our boat and another 8 dolphins feeding under a flock of birds on our left. Due to more ships showing up however we decided to leave these animals and find that whale we saw behind the ship earlier, and we managed to find it quite quickly. This whale was a little more elusive however and dove for 10 minutes at a time before surfacing. So deciding to move on and find a more photogenic animal we began to leave when suddenly the dolphins showed up again, jumping high out of the water to our right, before suddenly the humpback whale reappeared and began to tail slap its massive tail on the water, throwing water high into the air. Just as quickly as this activity started it then stopped, and running out of time we began to head home. On the way home however we had 2 more white beaked dolphins come by and say goodbye. In total we saw 2 humpback whales, and 2 pods of dolphins, one of which split up, with 8, 4 individuals within each half, and 2 individual dolphins in the final group at the end.

- Liam van Walsum

Report from Hafsulan: Perfect day at sea today, with light winds and very sunny weather. The waves were somewhat tall (0.5-1 m), but this didn't make the trip uncomfortable at all. The trip started out slowly, with harbor porpoises, 2 white beaked dolphins, 2 minke whales and humpback whales showing up but only briefly, to then go for long deep dives and pop up far away from our ship. We were losing hope of seeing any of these animals from up close when we spotted a breaching humpback, a small individual. This proved to be comfortable enough around ships allowing us to come quite close and see a couple of its fluke dives. One of these dives ended up being quite long, thus we left the area as time was running out. However, on our way back we had a rare and special sighting: a very curious minke whale came very close to the ship, checking us out by circling underneath us and spy hopping (coming out with its snout). A perfect end to this perfect trip!

-Cindy Schwenk

Report from Eldey. Such amazing and incredible sightings we had today for this 1pm whale watching tour with perfect sea conditions. When we arrived in the hotspot area, we spotted 1 minke whale just one time. However we decided to keep going a bit further to try our chance to see more or something else. A bit further another 1 minke whale came much closer to our boat by having a curious behaviour. Another 1 minke whale was a bit further busy to feed as well as a bunch of birds were flying in a circle. We decided to go somewhere else as other whale watching boats saw something interesting. It was indeed a whale that we rarely see on the bay, 1 fin whale ! It was travelling very close to our boat, everyone could see the huge size of the second largest animal of the cetaceans after the blue whale ! We decided to leave soon as it was so crowded, 8 boats around the animal. We spotted on the way around 8 white beaked dolphins bow riding and being very interactive with our boat and also 2 minke whales feeding together. We stayed 10 mins and decided to leave and head back to Reykjavik. On the way back we saw a quick 1 harbour porpoise.

- Enorha Guimard

Report from Hafsúlan: Leaving the port we had nice sunshine and only a bit of clouds and swell. Our first sighting on this incredible tour was a very rare visitor: a FIN WHALE! The last sighting of this species in this bay was back in 2019. We followed this very fast traveling animal for quite some time and admired it and the pod of white beaked dolphins jumping around it. The guides were extremely excited about this sighting and this excitement was contagious. After looking at this huge baleen whale for some time we headed off and saw some, in comparison very small, minke whales pop up every now and again. The final sighting was of 2 magnificent humpback whales just resting and slowly traveling and diving together. We got very close to these animals and got to see them swim just under the waters surface. What an awesome day!

- Cindy Schwenk

Report from Eldey: A beautiful day in Reykjavík with sunshine and no wind. On our way out we had sunshine and amazing landscapes! We searched far out in the bay today. We passed by big flocks of seabirds, mainly northern fulmars and seagulls. The first sighting that we had today was a magnificient minke whale. Eventually it surfaced very close to our boat allowing us for a good look and great photos. About 10 minke whales could be seen along this tour. The second encounter was a pod of 8-10 white-beaked dolphins. We enjoyed these dolphins for some time. We could see that in the pod were 3 calves so we decided to continue our tour. Later on we found a nice pod of 2-3 harbour porpoises that came up right in front of us and continued away. A few people on the top deck managed to get a quick look at these tiny cetaceans. The spout of a humpback whale could be seen at the distance. Suddenly another boat was approaching to it and the whale tail breached elegantly. Another humpback was quite close so we went there and had a look at it. It surfaced but the spout was almost invisible this time. At the distance a huge spout could also be seen. It might have been a huge animal but we were running out of time and we could not wait more for it to surface again. The sea sometimes leave us with intrigue and mysteries that not always are solved. When we left that animal we started to sail back, and on our way back home another pod of about 10 white-beaked dolphins crossed its path with us. The scenery was fabulous, with the skies painted in colours and a beautiful sunset that gave us a mysterious and amazing midnight tour.

- Estel Sanchez

Atlantic puffin, common guillemot, black guillemot, lesser and greater black backed gulls, Arctic tern, northern fulmar, Arctic skua, herring gull, black-legged kittiwake, northern gannet