Thursday, 28 April 2022

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

 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.

Report from Elding: The morning was beautiful, with calm seas and low wind. We found many pods of harbour porpoises on the way that we got to see as they were splashing and surfacing fast, spread out all over the bay. A little later we found a humpback whale that was very curious about the whale-watching boats in the area, coming very close to us. We stayed with the whale for a while but then we wanted to see a different individual that we had spotted from a distance. When we reached the area, the whale surprised us and surfaced just a few meters away from the boat. This whale was taking much longer dives, so after a few deep dives we decided to circle around to check out different parts of the bay, and there we found a minke whale. Having seen three different cetacean species, we sailed back to Reykjavik harbour and enjoyed the beautiful weather. 

- Eline van Aalderink

Report from ThrumaIV: Today was a bit special because we started the tour from Njarðvík, a small harbour near Keflavik. The conditions were just amazing with a perfect mirror-like sea, no wind and some sun during the tour. With those conditions it was very easy to spot a pod of 5-7 white-beaked dolphins that was jumping far away. We got closer and the dolphins stopped jumping. At first they were quite cautious but after a few minutes a few ones came very close of our boat, we could even admire very easily them through the water. We continued our tour when we saw quite close another species, a minke whale. We saw it surfacing two sequences and then we could not see it anymore so we were going to go find something else when the minke whale breached further away! We went close and the marine mammal was still doing some lunges over the water. Very impressive! When the minke dove we came back to the harbour but in the way we saw a blow! We got closer and saw that it was a very friendly humpback whale. The large animal gently came to greet us, getting its rostrum out of the water to have a look on us and circling around our vessel. Such an amazing experience. When the humpback went a bit further away we slowly moved away and went back to the harbour.

- Miquel Pons

Report from Elding: This afternoon´s tour was an unforgettable one with whales coming exceptionally close to the boat and showing relatively uncommon behaviours. We started the tour sailing the flat waters of Faxaflói and admiring the landscape and sunny sky, and soon we found several harbour porpoises showing their small triangular dorsal fins in different areas of the bay. Our attention was quickly shifted towards a different animal as we saw high splashes and blows in the distance: two humpback whales were slapping their pectoral fins forcefully onto the water. The humpbacks, one of them our regular Mariupol and the other of unknown identity, were rolling onto their backs, swerving their flukes, and lifting their long ´angel wings´ high out of the water. As if that wasn´t spectacular enough, the two whales suddenly approached our boat and were swimming just a few meters past us, their heads tilted towards us and their eyes locking with ours. With the clear water today, we were able to see every detail of these impressively large whales´ bodies, even when they were under water. After the whales went for a longer dive they appeared a bit further away, one of them breaching with about 60% of its body out of the water. After all this excitement, the whales calmed down and shifted to a resting state. We observed the pair for some time but later decided to check out other areas of the bay, where we found three minke whales spread out. One of the minkes surfaced very frequently and at some point changed its direction towards our boat, lunging right underneath a flock of birds that were sitting around 15 meters away from our boat. Sightings like these remind us how important it is to protect these amazing animals and make us realise how lucky we are to get to observe them in their wild habitats. 

- Eline van Aalderink

Report from ThrumaII: After the great morning tour we went quite excited and optimistic in the bay, still under wonderful conditions. We first had a stop to see Atlantic puffins in Akurey island. They were thousands taking the sun on the grass of the island. We continued and quickly stopped a few times when we were seeing porpoises. It is difficult to know how many they were but there was probably 10-15 small groups of 2-4 harbour porpoises. We quickly stopped again for a minke whale. We saw the baleen whale surfacing a few times and we went further out until we saw a tail from far away. We approached and saw a nice humpback whale going for regular deep dives showing us its fluke every time. We admire it for 25 minutes and we decided to see what else was in the bay. There was another humpback whale that was diving when we arrived but closer to Reykjavik there was another humpback whale pectoral slapping the water. When we approached we recognized Neila, a whale that is frequently seen since last year and often active. It was just amazing to see this big animal getting so active. There was other boats so we did not want to stay for long and we went back to the previous one. This humpback was very curious about another RIB boat and just swimming around it. We stopped the engines and observed the interaction. The humpback came to us maybe curious about this new visitor and we could see it from very close. In our back we saw 2 more humpback whales, for a total of 5 humpback whales during the tour. They were synchronized and swimming together, we had a look at them and went back to the harbour very happy after such an amazing day.

- Miquel Pons