Thursday, 15 June 2023

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00, 13:00 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 | 09:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 12:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 16:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 20:30

Report from Eldey: Today we sailed out on a beautiful calm sea with barely any wind. The sea was smooth as silk and very pale in colour so any cetaceans popping up would be easy to spot. Not long after leaving the harbour we spotted a blow. It was in the exact spot that we saw the blow on the 1400 o clock yesterday which proved to be a tricky humpback whale. And low and behold it wasnt 1 but 2 humpback whales! They were both taking fairly long dives and taking their time to come up. It took us a few moments to realise they were 2 individuals as they took turns coming up, but they had two distinctive dorsal fins so when they both came up at the same time our theory was confirmed. As a few more boats had joined and the humpbacks werent moving a lot we decided to head further out. That we did and quickly saw a pod of 8 white beaked dolphins. This was a very calm pod coming quite close to the boat and taking their time swimming around us. They moved onwards with their journey and so did we and found another pod of 7-10 dolphins. This pod was much more active and was jumping and feeding and a sight to see. We stayed with this pod for a while and then as we continued spotted 2 minke whales. These can sometimes be tricky to spot but in this calm sea it was easy. One came up a few times before disappearing in minke fashion. On the way home we saw 2 more minkes on the horizon.

- Anna Richter

Report from Eldey: Our afternoon tour was as calm as the sea. We sailed out enjoying the 16°C and the weak wind on our faces, making us don't even think about overalls! Not too far from Reykjavik, we had our first encounter: a minke whale passing by us, and giving us a good look at it before disappearing. Not too far from it, we spotted a pod of 6 white-beaked dolphins swimming calmly, and we stayed with them for a while before heading to another area. Luckily, we've found a great spot full of minkes and seabirds feeding! Together with a great look on them, we felt the interesting and fishy breath of them several times, giving them away that they were always close. We had about 4 minkes around us, and we kept on track on a single one that was swimming along us. On our back home, we spotted the dolphins one more time and headed to the harbour feeling the shy sun coming to greet us.

- Milla Brandao

Report from Eldey: We set sail on this first midnight tour of the season on incredibly calm seas. Within 30 minutes we saw our first of hundreds of cetaceans. It was a minke whale. We saw this individual surface a few times before heading on. Within moments we saw 2 pods of white beaked dolphins totalling 10 individuals. We saw a huge splash far away, likely from an animal breaching. We went over to investigate and we saw more dolphins (about 15) around a humpback whale all feeding together. The humpback vertically lunge fed twice which was so cool before both species started to blow bubbles to help with feeding. The dolphins then left and the humpback started to show resting behaviours after their yummy meal. So we headed on and saw another 10-15 minke whales all near some great black backed gulls feeding and a couple of fishing boats. As these minkes started to disappear we headed on and came across more dolphins. But beyond these 10-15 dolphins we could see big blows from humpbacks. As we got closer to them we realised there was 7-9 humpbacks along with 50 dolphins and 10 minke whales. It was a feeding frenzy! We saw one of the humpbacks lunge feeding a few times. Within these humpbacks we recognised two straight away, they were Neila and Davy Jones II. We also got to see many fluke dives from these beautiful species. On our way home we then saw another pod of 4 dolphins, 4 minke whales and 2 humpback whales. It was so hard to keep count of all the cetaceans. It was such a special tour.

- Rob Hyman

Great black backed gulls, atlantic puffins, arctic tern, arctic skua, great skua, northern fulmar, northern gannet, common guillemot, black guillemot, black legged kittiwake and herring gull.