Thursday, 18 January 2024

Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 13:00 Classic Whale Watching tour. Make sure to dress according to weather, as it is usually colder at sea than on land.

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00

Report from Eldey: what a lovely afternoon we had! The day has began with a bit of snow, cloudy and dark. But as soon as we got closer to leave, the skies cleared out, the sun started to shine, the weather was fabulous! So we sailed out in this cold breeze, ready to spot the beautiful wildlife of Faxaflói bay. About 5 minutes after we left the harbour, we already had our first encounter: a humpback whale, later confirmed as Ekki! We've been quite lucky with these individuals so close to Reykjavík, and we enjoyed this whale while it went for deeper dives. It is named Ekki cause it hardly ever shows its fluke, but today it even rolled, showing the white fluke underneath! So beautiful, we spent a quality time, while we saw it coming so close and giving us jump scares with its loud blow. We have already seen before that there was another humpback not far from it, on the other side. So when another boat decided to join, we went to check the other out. The other one, as predicted, was Calamity, another active humpback. This one was also coming very close, passing underneath the boat. There was a moment that Calamity was extremely close and I could only spot it cause I saw the blow, but not the body. That's how close it was! We then went to explore other areas, spotting 3 grey seals, and on the way back to the harbour, we decided to pass by Ekki again, the first whale. It was calmly swimming next to the shore in Videy island, and we could enjoy it alone for a few minutes. The landscape and the whales were amazing with the pinkish sunlight, and the big flock of great cormorants flying towards the sunset while we went back home was a beautiful way to say goodbye to this amazing tour.

- Milla Brandao

Great cormorant, black-backed gull, herring gull, common gull, razorbill, black guillemot