Tour at 20:30
Report from Elding: Despite the fog that had rolled in since this morning, the weather conditions were perfect for whale-watching as we left the harbour. The flat seas and uniform colour meant that sighting our first animals were easy. We had a pod of 7 white-beaked dolphins show off for us by breaching and approaching the boat, even swimming under us at one point! It was amazing. After feeling like we had imposed on them for long enough, we ventured further and were rewarded by another pod of 5 white-beaked dolphins. These dolphins were a bit more relaxed than the previous group but still approached us and swam under the boat again. Thinking that our encounters had been pretty exemplary so far, we started heading back to port only to be stopped once again by another pod of 5 white-beaked dolphins! This pod was very interactive and started bow-riding at one point! It was great. Thinking that once again we were done with encounters, the musician started his set - only to be interrupted one final time by a minke whale! What a great tour!
-Rachel Pool
Tour at 17:00
Report from Eldey: Leaving the harbour, we had great conditions this evening. The swell was low and the sea calmed even more throughout the trip. Reaching our main sighting area, we spotted some white-beaked dolphins on our left side. At first we spotted two seperate dorsal fins, which were moving slowly through the water, however later this pod turned out to be one of four individuals. These dolphins were very calm and were possibly resting. After a couple of nice encounters and having the dolphins really close to the boat, we decided to sail on and look for other species. As we were going further south through our main sighting area, we spotted a minke whale who we were trying to get close to. Luckily, we had this minke whale between 50-100m in front of us, swimming towards the whale fjord. At one point it swam from left to right within 50 meters of our boat and we even got a good look at its rostrum! This was a very nice encounter with this animal and we were ready to return. Unfortunately we started to have problems with the boats´ engine and we had to stop a few times on the way back to Reykjavik. Our passengers were very calm and in good spirit, who we would like to thank once again for dealing with this inconvenience so well! Passengers as well as crew were happy to be back on land with a delay of approx. 30 minutes.
- Friedrich Rittner
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsulan: The previous tour was incredible so we had huge expectations for this one. Despite so, we started our trip with a big fog in front of us, it seemed like a white wall we had to cross through but as soon as we sailed a little bit further, the mist disappeared and we enjoyed a good ride around. It didn´t take too long until we found a big flock of birds lying in the water so we decided to wait a little bit and see if we were able to find any cetacean and indeed we did! A couple of minke whales appeared in the middle of the bird flock, going around and looking for food. Furthermore, we searched the area and we discovered more individuals of this species so we enjoyed nice encounters with this fast species. After a while amused by these animals, we tried our luck to find more species and we got surprised by a small pod of white-beaked dolphins surfacing from now and then and we even saw a small calf between them. In the way back, the wind was in our back so we had a nice ride home back to Reykjavik, covered by fog.
-Rodrigo A, Martinez Catalan
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: We were so excited to be heading out into the bay again after this mornings amazing experience. As we passed the puffin islands it's always nice to see the puffins flying too and from them carrying fish for their chicks. Always something to entertain us as we travel out into the bay. We were lucky though that is wasn't long before we found a pod of 4-6 white-beaked dolphins, they were good, came close and got some nice sightings but you could feel that they were not in the mood so we didn't stay very long. We were looking for whales but came across another pod of 6-8 white-beaked dolphins. These were with babies and were very busy feeding. Really easy to follow by following the few arctic terns the birds never let us down. It was beautiful watching them feed together dolphin and birds. We left once again to look for larger cetaceans and after about 45 minutes of searching we finally found a place with an abundance of bird life. Thousands of birds feeding on a big ball cluster of fish as well as a big scattered pod of maybe 10-20 harbour porpoises and 3 minke whales were spotted here and one surfaced nicely near to the boat to get a great look and a few photographs. There were surface feeding, using bubbles and even head slaps that seemed to be to try and get rid of all the birds but we of course its always just a theory. It was just incredible. A real David Attenbourgh experience. On the way home we encountered another small pod of white-beaked dolphins
- Megan Whittaker
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsúlan: The conditions were absolutely perfect for whale watching, smooth sea, dry sky, and sun shining through thin clouds. The tour began with a relaxed humpback whale that we got great look at, it surfaced close to us so we could see its white flippers through the water. While watching the humpback we spotted a pod of white beaked dolphins up ahead. We went to have a better look at the dolphins and saw they were 8 individuals traveling together. There were some small juveniles in the pod and one tiny calf! It was exciting to follow them while they swam west out of the bay. The tour ended with a sighting of another humpback whale. This one dove for longer and was less predictable for us. However we finally got to see the fluke of this individual, something that the our first one never did. This was definitely a nice day to be out on the bay.
-Sigurlaug Sigurðardóttir
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey and Elding: Sailing out into the bay, sea conditions were pristine with minimum swell height and a mostly cloudy sky. As we were on our way to our main sighting area, our other whale watching vessel Elding had already spotted a humpback whale. We did not hesitate and made our way there immediately. The individual we saw there was quite calm and after about three surfaces, this whale went for a longer dive. It would repeat this about two times and as we always had to wait quite a bit for this whale to re-surface, we decided to move on and give this whale some space. Only about 10 minutes into sailing through our sighting area, we spotted some white-beaked dolphins that were once again first sighted by our partner in crime, Elding. This was a pod of 3 dolphins (including one individual identified as Connor - a dolphin seen in this bay since 2013) and we got a nice look at them, however these individuals were also quite passive and after maybe 15 minutes we left this pod to continue searching our main sighting area. On Elding the dolphins gave us a wonderful show and came up right at the bow of the boat and swam right underneath us! Later on during our tour we spotted a few harbour porpoises which surfaced a few times and a minke whale which came up beautifully slow showing us its wonderful streamlined body as it did so. As both boats continued the search for more cetaceans, we were lucky enough to spot something big in the distance, as well as some water splashes. This turned out to be the pectoral fins of another humpback whale who was slapping its pectoral fins on the waters surface. As we got closer we saw that this individual was amongst a lot of puffins and arctic terns, making us believe that it was feeding at some point. We were observing this whale for a little bit, then suddenly it breached on our left side about 50 meters away! This individual was later identified to be Charlie and Charlie did not disappoint! He breached four times while swimming in the direction of Akranes and continued with different behaviours after that. These behaviours included pec slapping, lob tailing and more breaches! It was an absolute pleasure to observe and stay with this whale today and we wish we could have stayed for longer!
- Friedrich Rittner & Tess Hudson
Birds seen on today´s tours: atlantic puffin, common guillemot, black guillemot, kittiwake, northern fulmar, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull, arctic skua, arctic tern, manx shearwater and northern gannet
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík today. The condition look good today and we hope you are able to join us on the search of these magnificent animals in their natural environment.
- Image
- Image
- Image
