Status Tour 17 and 19: RUNNING FROM ANOTHER HARBOUR
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik at 17:00 (5pm) and we will end the tour in KEFLAVIK harbour. The guests will then be transported back to Reykjavik (about 50minutes) free of charge with a bus. For the Whale Watching tour 19:00 (7pm) we will transport our guest to Keflavik by bus from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik and then end in Reykjavik by boat.
Tour at 20:00
Report from Elding: Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow, what a whale of a tour! It’s all you can say after the incredible tour we had during the evening. But let’s start from the beginning. We decided to change our plans a little bit and instead of making our usual departure from the old harbour in Reykjavik we went to Keflavik because we heard that there was an incredible amount of wildlife around there. As soon as we arrived there, our hopes were confirmed because we were just leaving the bus before boarding into the ship and we spotted a huge humpback whale extremely close to the port. So the tour couldn’t start better! But we had more, much more!! We left the harbour trying to get close to the individual and what happen next was unbelievable. Some bubbles came up to the surface and fish seemed to be quite stressed near the surface, just few seconds later a huge humpback appeared with open mouth having a great bite of food, it was what is known as lunge feeding. That wasn’t all, humpbacks were particularly active and they were doing pectoral slapping, laying over their backs and fluking. We were able to see at least four of them and they had more surprises for us. We spotted another humpback in the way to Reykjavik and this one was extremely crazy, it was breaching (more than 10 times!!), jumping out of the water, doing pectoral slapping and breathing heavily. There weren’t that many behaviours that we missed from this incredible animal. To add into our pocket, a Minke whale joined to the party to say goodbye while we were listening Bjarni’s live music on board. It was speechless tour!!
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 17:00
Report from Elding: Thanks to the reports we got from the zodiacs from Whale Safari, our sister company, we learned that there were some humpback whales in the area of Keflavik. Thus we took the brave decision of riding the waves towards that direction. And it proved to be the best choice ever made, since we had one wonderful tour. Particularly one of the best from my career as a naturalist. It took us almost 2 hours of sailing to reach the area but we were everything but bored on our way there. We saw around 5 minke whales (3 of them traveling together!) and one of them was actually closer than 100 m! We saw a small pod of 4-5 harbour porpoises for a few seconds (as good as it gets with this little shy ones!). But when we reached the Keflavik area... we saw the indescribable. We first spotted on blow almost at the edge of the Reikjaness peninsula, where Gardur is placed. Once there we saw one humpback whale. And then another one joined. But then 3 more were traveling towards our position! The tension was getting higher and higher. We found ourselves suddenly surrounded by 5 humpback whales!!! I have never seen so many humpback whales together in the Faxafloi! It was pretty obvious that there were 2 pairs traveling together and one rather solitary animal. Another thing is if this bonding was welcome by all the parts, since one of the humpbacks was clearly trumpeting (special sound they make to express discomfort) when the other one was surfacing simultaneously. We stood there, amazed by our luck for almost an entire hour and then sadly we had to start to head toward Keflavik harbour. In the way we joined the other couple that was speeding up a little bit and, for our surprise, one of the individuals decided to make a full breach right in front of us! Amazing! There's no other word to define this. So we reached the harbour but we had one final surprise: the humpback whale number 6, swimming almost at the entrance of the harbour. Again, one of the best tours I've ever been in!!!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 14:00
Report from Hafsulan: Conditions in Faxafloi today were quite good as soon as the wind went down we enjoyed a smooth sailing experience during the whole tour, but we weren’t there only for that we were hoping to see some cetaceans and we did! Few minutes after leaving the protection of the harbour, we got some good news from other vessels telling about playful animals around. So we headed into the direction of Hvalfjordur to find out which species it was, and there they were, a big pod of white-beaked dolphins. There were at least 6 of them but later a new pod joined them so we were able to see at least 10 of them together. What made this encounter unique was that we saw incredible behaviour. Dolphins were jumping out of the water, head-slapping and displaying a bunch of acrobatic conducts, especially the youngest of the group a little calf that was mesmerizing. After being with them for a while, we decided to try our luck further and explore a little bit more the bay, but it seemed that today was the dolphin day. Not long after, we spotted another group of white-beaked dolphins displaying more acrobatic behaviours and diving underneath our boat so we had a good and close view of these fantastic animals. In the way back home, we spotted once another cetacean but the encounter was so fast and elusive that we didn’t have chances to see again. Despite that, we enjoyed dolphins which were giving us a nice spectacle and the sun finally decided to shine a little bit when we were getting close to Reykjavik, making the afternoon tour a unique experience.
-Rodrigo A. Martinez Catalan
Tour at 13:00
Report from Eldey: Cool conditions were still waiting for us in the bay. Just a little bit of wind disturbing the surface of the water and great conditions to spot the cetaceans! After almost 40 minutes of departure we spotted the first of many pod of white beaked dolphins, with around 8-10 individuals. Although sometimes we got to see them up close, even riding the eaves of our boat, the overall impression is that they were reacting rather elusive, or maybe protective, due to the presence of at least 4-5 calves/juveniles. After this point... the sea was a party of dolphins. We spotted overall around 3-4 more pods of dolphins, with an average size of 4-5 individuals. And a few of them also show themselves quite close to our boat again! So unfortunately no whales this time, but for sure the dolphins made it up for it!
- Alberto Alejandro
Tour at 10:00
Report from Hafsulan: It was a little bit windy morning, but we felt this breeze only on the way back. Sky was covered by clouds whats mean perfect conditions for whale watching. Next to the Grotta so close to the city we saw minke whale, but animal surface only once so we went further. One side of the bay was hidden under clouds but we had great view for landscape of Snaefellsnes where next to Akranes we saw some splashes which leaded us to the white-beaked dolphins. Pod of 8 individuals ( one of them recognized as Zeus) was in very good mood interacting with our boat, swimming next by or diving. Later on they presented show of multiple jumps high in the sky. We had so much fun with them that it was hard to leave. We sailed through the middle of bay looking for more cetaceans and at the end we found minke whale. This individual wasn't´t easy to follow but we were able to see two surfacing patterns so in total whale was 8 times on the surface. It was dolphinetly fun trip!
- Ewa Malinowska
Tour at 09:00
Report from Eldey: Sailing through the bay, conditions were pretty good today. We had slow winds from south-east, which made it a comfortable way out. Close to the whalefjord, we spotted two white-beaked dolphins, however these guys didn't show much of themselves and remained hidden from the rest of the passengers. Luckily, not long after, we spotted a pod of about 5 white-beaked dolphins close to some of the other whale watching boats in the bay. They were leaping out of the water and once they got close to us, they even swam around and underneath our boat! One individual even jumped out of the water, landing on its back and doing so repeatedly very close to our boat! We could stay with these animals for a while and everyone got a good look at these animals. After watching these awesome animals, we decided to carry on and look for more wildlife in the bay. We eventually found a minke whale, which was great. This individual was surfacing a couple of times, however was very unpredictable as to where it would surface again and it also never got too close to the boat. After waiting for a long time for it to resurface, we again, decided to carry on and look for more animals. Shortly after we actually spotted another minke whale, but we had the same luck with this one as with the one before. We saw it surface a few times, but it was a little shy towards our boat. On our way back, we saw more dolphins jumping out of the water, but we didn't have enough time to stay with them. Regardless of this, it was a fun trip and we were happy to have seen these beautiful animals!
- Friedrich Rittner
Birds seen on today's tours: northern gannet, atlantic puffin, cormorant, common guillemot, northern fulmar, eider duck, arctic skua, greater black-backed gull and black legged kittiwake.
Status: RUNNING
We are sailing out from the Old Harbour in Reykjavik today. There is wind coming from the South East and lets hope the sun will shine on us today. Hope you are able to join us on our search for these magnificent animals.
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