THURSDAY, 28 JULY 2016

Tour at 20:30

Report from Eldey: What a tour! just 20 minutes out of the harbour we saw two blows, the exhaled breath from a pair of humpback whales. Suddenly they started to breach, not just one of them but two breaching together. It is a special thing to see a whale breaching, does not happen every day, sometimes even every week or month. To see that in it's self is spectacular but tonight was a night to never forget to have two breaching in the midnight sun. They stopped I guess when they got tired and traveled further towards land. We decided to leave them and travel further west and found another pair of humpback whales. Not as active as the first two but we able to get closer to these animals, 10meter something they surfaced from us. Obviously these humpback whales were having a romantic evening together with teh midnight sun. With the musical talents of Bjarni on the way ack to port just kept the smiles on everyones faces. A magical night for sure. 

- Megan Whittaker

Tour at 17:00

Report from Eldey: The wind had calmed a little bit since the afternoon so we dared to head more southwest on this tour. We were checking a lead from another whale watching boat that said they saw a blow in this direction on their way back from the previous tour. We searched for a while and just when we thought it would not give anything the guides spotted BIG splashes in the horizon. It proved to be two humpback whales breaching, tail-slapping and rolling together! We could see all these behaviours in some distance and when we arrived to them we could spend the rest of the tour observing these humpback-friends traveling together and surface always close together. When they went for deeper dives both flunked high showing us the big flukes out of the water. We returned to harbour in the sunshine and happy that our gamble to go southwest paid of big time. Over and out!

- Marcus Bergström 

Tour at 14:00

Report from Elding: The winds had eased slightly from the rollercoaster ride of this mornings trip - but still had enough swell for us to all enjoy surfing the waves on this afternoons tour! We headed towards Akranes where we saw the humpback from this mornings tour. The bay here was much more sheltered from the north-easterly winds and the swell had eased - we were even bathed on top deck with some glorious sunshine! After 45 minutes of sailing we were greeted with the blow of a humpback whale. We were able to get within 100 m of the animal to see it surface 3 more times before we were greeted with a lazy tail fluke from this individual. It even decided to come and check us out - alerting us to it´s close proximity (within 10 m !) by its huge blow. We stayed with this individual for over 30 minutes and were able to enjoy its relaxed surface and dives. We headed back towards Reykjavik with the news of another humpback whale just outside of the harbour. Unfortunately we were only able to spot the blow from this animal before it disappeared on a deeper dive. However this was still a great tour - where we were really able to appreciate the full majestic nature of this gentle giant.

- Darcy Philpott 

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: The wind was still very strong like the morning´s tours but we were hoping that we would have just as much luck with the sightings. We travelled out staying close to Mt. Esja, Hvalfjordur and Akranes in order to seek shelter from the northeasterly wind. After just under an hour of travelling we spotted a minke whale 400 m away! At first it was quite distant but then it changed direction and headed towards us, at one point coming up 30 m in front of the boat and heading towards us still - not a view you often see of the minke whale. After this it started behaving elusively so we continued further out towards the very large flocks of birds off the tip of Akranes. As we headed in this direction we saw several blows (even in this gusty weather) which turned out to be a humpback whale! This individual was at first acting very playfully, slapping his tail on the water several times and then taking us by surprise with a massive BREACH, completely lifting itself out of the water. What a shame out photographers didn´t get a photo, but I hope a few of the passengers did. This individual then began to travel between flocks of birds occasionally feeding at the surface, and after a half hour of watching we unfortunately had to to head back towards home in the wind. What a treat to see the whole humpback completely out of the water, an unforgettable sight.

- Ophelie Humphrey

Tour at 10:00

Report from Elding: It was a pretty rough beginning. Wind was blowing up to 10 meters per second, and we got pretty strong waves too. Sun was shinning anyways and people were brave enough to be on top deck despite the weather conditions. It took us a while to find the first whale. About an hour! but the wait was worth it. We saw a small humpback whale breaching about 150 meters away from the boat. It did it not only once but 7 times in a row! hard to describe the feeling I got when that happened. We stayed with the animal for about 20 minutes. It was very close to Akranes (a town on the west coast) and lots of feeding birds were around. We saw the animal going for short dives and surfacing quiet a lot. Northern gannets were diving like crazy about 200 meters away from the boat too. We saw also briefly a minke whale very close to the boat but only once. While looking for the small humpback after one of the long dives we saw another blow about 800 meters away and as we got closer we saw it breach! a quite big individual! bigger than the first one! We stayed with this one for the rest of the tour and on the way back people went downstairs to get some whale punches to celebrate it! what an amazing tour!

- Jorge Pascual

Tour at 09:00

Report from Eldey: The wind was rough this morning and the sea was covered with white-caps. We went straight out in the bay and started searching. We soon spotted a blow from a whale and even that we didn't see the animal it-self we could figure out that it must have been a minke whale. Some quick passengers at the front might have seen the blow from the whale but the observation stayed at that and we couldn't find it again. Soon though we found a pod of 2-3 white-beaked dolphins, we saw the dolphins a few times on our port side and they seam next to us. We didn't turn around to follow the dolphins because another whale watching boat had found a humpback whale. This was a very small individual but it made up its small size with some truly amazing acrobatic movements. We saw a full breach (jumping out of the water with its whole body!), tail-slapping and rolling at the surface. It was a show to remember. Some alert passengers onboard got some nice photos of the breaching. We returned happily to harbour that we went out even though we had some wind and swells because the reward was a humpback show! Over and out!

- Marcus Bergström

Birds seen on today´s tours: atlantic puffin, arctic skua, great skua, northern fulmar, manx shearwater, greater black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, black-legged kittiwake, arctic tern, northern gannet and eider duck.

Status: RUNNING

We are sailing from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik on another beautiful day. The sun is shining and there is little to no wind but there could be some movement on the boat out in the Faxabay. Hope you are able to join us to try to find these magnificent animals in there natural environment