✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 20:30
Report from Elding: After a really rainy day, the sun won finally against the clouds. The wind was coming from the North, keeping us refreshed, and the midnight sun kept us spellbound the whole trip. It took us a while until we had our first encounteres. A really shy minke whale surfaced twice in front of our view, dissapearing afterwards to breath somewhere else. We continued our searching and we saw a blow really far away. When we got to the area, the mysterious animal was gone, maybe, just underneath us holding the breath, but we were waiting for a few minutes and never appear again. We wear having really shy animals until we got a nice pod of 5 white-beaked dolphins surfacing the waves and travelling quite fast. We spent a nice time with them until a blow appeared again in the distance. We sailed to the area and me lucky to encounter a minke whale in the area. After this last sighting, it was time to head back home, keeping the midnight sun with us.
-Elena Gutiérrez Ruiz
✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 17:00
Report from Eldey: It's astonishing how fast the weather changes in Iceland. The evening tour sailed under a perfectly blue sky when a few hours ago it was raining. We enjoyed beautiful views on the land during the trip. We saw a wonderful rainbow beginning near to Reykjavik and ending in Akranes. If we saw the majestic northern gannet plunge-diving in the water, the funny flight of the cute atlantic puffin and a lot of northern fulmar mastering the winds, we unfortunately didn't saw the minke whales seen during the previous tours or any other species of whales and dolphins. During the way back we saw a little pod of shy harbour porpoises swimming very fast, probably feeding. Because we really want our passengers to see more amazing sea mammals, we offered them a complementary ticket to book a new free tour. We hope to see you soon !
- Miquel Pons
✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 14:00
Report from Hafsúlan: Sea conditions were quite good, apart from some persistent rain, during this tour. We fallowed our usual plan and went for the areas where the sighting from the previous tours took place. But despite the fact we crossed a minke whale that popped up really close to our vessel, we had no other proper encounter during this trip. Though it is rare, as wild animals, cetaceans can sometimes be quite challenging to spot and keep track of. Since this tour did not held up to our standards, we offered all our passengers an opportunity to come back again with us, on another whale watching tour, for free! Hope to see them all again soon!
- Inês Cunha
✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 13:00
Report from Eldey: Rain, rain and some more rain is what was awaiting us during this tour. Still, cetaceans don't care for the weather at all and after the successful morning tours, we started our trip in good spirits, despite the weather. Our first sign of wildlife was a flock of birds, mostly northern gannets, actively feeding, diving into the water at great speeds. Suddenly a pod of 3-4 harbour porpoises came up in between the birds, feeding with them. Usually these animals are very shy and it was incredible to see them close by and actively hunting fish. Soon after this encounter, we came across our first 2 minke whales, surfacing nearby. There were more to come. We found 5 more minke whales, in the course of this tour and even though they were a little tricky to keep track of, we all enjoyed a good look at these beautiful animals, before happily returning to Reykjavík.
- Diana Besel
✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE | 10:00
Report from Hafsulan: Even with clouds overcasting almost the whole bay and some rainy showers during the tour, the sea was super calm with almost no waves as we entered into Faxafloi bay this morning. It took us almost an hour until we started seeing more and more bird life around us, with northern gannets plunge diving all around us. And that was when we spotted our first of 3 minke whales. The animal was rather elusive and kept going for deeper dives, which made it hard to predict where it is coming up next. So we decided to leave the animal alone and continue our search. And it didn't take us long until we found a pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins. We were able to follow the animals for a short while, but because they keot travelling away from us, we decided to check out a big flock of seabirds instead. Here we came across black-backed gulls, northern fulmars, black-legged kittiwakes, manx shearwaters and , again, northern gannets. They were accompanied by two arctic skuas closely following the feeding of the gulls and going after their prey. We stayed for a while to watch, but could not find any cetacean activity and decided to turn around and head back towards the harbour. And it was on the way back we had a fantastic minke whale encounter. Two animals crossed our path and one of them was travelling in a straight line, surfacing 3-4 times before diving deeper, which made it a real treat to watch. This tour was a typical whale watching tour in Iceland, with Icelandic summer and wildlife prooving to be full of surprises.
-Christina Winkler
✔ TOUR ON SCHEDULE| 9:00
Report from Eldey: This morning tour started with an overcast sky and it was raining quite a bit during the tour as well. Luckily there was barely any wind and the sea was not rough with only a long swell, carrying us out into the bay. Our passengers were well equipped with our overalls, bravely facing the rain, while searching for ceataceans. It took us about an hour of sailing until we spotted our first flock of birds and soon after that a minke whale surfaced in their middle. It vanished rather quickly, but we found 3 more minke whales nearby, surfacing next to our boat, some of them being quite easy to follow. We spent some time with these lovely animals, but since it got very crowded with a lot of boats around, we kept on going, looking for more animals. Another minke whale popped up, just in front of the boat, before we started our return to the harbour.
- Diana Besel
Bird species identified today: northern fulmar, atlantic puffin, arctic skua, arctic tern, black-legged kittiwake, common guillemot, manx shearwater, lesser black-backed gull, northern gannet.
We are sailing from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík today. The weather today is good, however if you are prone to getting sea sick, we do have sea sickness tablets available free of charge at the office and on board. Make sure to dress warmly and make use of our warm overalls as it is always colder on sea than on land. For more information contact us by email elding@elding.is or by phone +354 519 5000.
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