Thursday, 22 June 2023

Today we will be operating on our lovely vessel Eldey and Hafsúla for the 09:00, 10:00, 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
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 12:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 16:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 20:30

Report from Eldey: Today we expected a sunny sky again but instead a grey sky accompanied us during all the tour and it was quite windy. Despite the chilly temperature we could sail in a smoothy way and we suddenly saw 1 blow in the distance. On our way towards it we just saw 1 quick harbour porpoise swimming on the side of the boat but it disappeared soon. We then saw 1 humpback whale and 1 minke whale in the same area. Both were quite elusive and in particular the humpback one was lazy and shy. But we managed to see few fluke dives though. While waiting for them to show up again I spotted a large number of dolphins in the distance and we wanted to reach them as soon as possible, as they were jumping out of the water and having so much fun! Once we got closer we spent lots of time with them: there were 2 pods of white beaked dolphins and one of them was busy feeding with a big bird flock of herring gulls, kittiwakes and lesser black backed gulls busy as well catching schooling fish. It was very cool especially when another minke whale joined the brunch!!!! And again the dolphins started jumping in front of us, super close to the bow and we ended the tour admiring them and also the humpback whale that was popping up sometimes just to say hi! 

- Marta 

Report from Elding: We sailed out in a very calm sea with only little wind. On our way out in the bay of Faxafloi we encountered one white beaked dolphin that was very elusive so we continued our search further out. A while later we saw a blow and could identify that species as a humpback whale. It showed itself three times before it went for a deeper dive. We did not see that individual again. On our way further out we saw a second humpback whale, also kind of elusive. Because we were running out of time we had to sail back. On our way back we saw a big flock of black-backed gulls that seemed to be active and feeding. We kept our eyes open in search of any cetaceans and we saw one very elusive minke whale. 

-Lasse Roggenkamp

Report from Eldey: We started the tour with a nice and calm sunny day. We sailed out and suddenly we were surprised by a minke whale 20 meters away from the boat! We stopped for it but it never came up again so we decided to continue. Few minutes later, a second minke whale popped up very close to the boat again! We repeated the same thing and we couldn´t spot it anymore. After that, we sailed for longtime until finally, we got to see a blow from a humpback whale. We spent some time with it was going for deep dives constantly so the sighting was a bit tricky. We decided to head back and we could spot a pod of around 6 white beaked dolphins! Beautiful tour!

-Nicolás Corral

Northern fulmar, Atlantic puffin, Herring gull, Arctic skua, Great cormorant, Black guillemot, Common Guillemot,  Common gull, Black-legged kittiwake, Lesser Black-backed gull, Glaucous gull.

Report from Eldey:  Tricky conditions at sea on this midnight tour, swells were not to bad but the wind produced a lot of white caps and made it more difficult to spot blows. Eventually it happened though and all in all we spotted 4 minke whales on three occasions. 1 of them surfaced quite close to the bow of our ship giving us a great view of it´s sleek black body. Other cetaceans were spotted but they were elusive and hard to tell what species we were actually seeing. Turned out to be not to shabby of a tour

- Kristin Ros