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Tuesday, 3 October 2023
Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 Premium Whale tour 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 | 9:00, 13:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: This sunny but crisp morning we sailed out to Faxafloi, eager to see what we would find. There was a bit of swell and a few green faces but fresh air always helps with that. After about an hour of sailing we spotted a minke whale, this individual seemingly popped up and then vanished again. But! Just as were waiting we spotted big splashes on the horizon and spotted a pod of 8 jumping white-beaked dolphins! At first it looked like they stopped to jump as we headed their way but then they came right up to us and were bow riding and jumping all around! Extremely close to the boat - what a show! We then sailed on and another pod of 6 dolphins came up and surprised us, again bow riding and following us for a bit. We eventually ran out of time and headed back to Reykjavik.
- Milla Brandao
CLASSIC WHALE WATCHING | 13:00
Report from Eldey: It was a bit chilly but much less windy than the morning tour. As we started our sail in the bay we first got greeted 3 times by different pods of harbour porpoises, all of them had between 3 to 4 individuals. Harbour porpoises are known to move around very fast but we still managed to have a nice glimpse of them. We then continued our sail and crossed path with a minke whale, this individual dove pretty fast so we did not get to see it properly. Afterwards we did not cross path with any animal for quite some time until another minke whale showed up. This one was much friendlier, and we saw it for a few breaths, and in the same area we had a pod of 3 white beaked dolphins that were very friendly and definetely the nicest sighting of this tour. We could observe this pod for a good 20 minutes before we started our sail back toward the harbour.
- Eline van Aalderink
Bird species enoucountered today:
razorbill, common guillemot, Norther gannet, Northern fulmar, herring gull, black footed kittiwake, glaucous gull, eider duck
Wildlife encountered today:
The Minke Whale is the most common whale around Iceland and actually the world thus it is one of the main species we encounter on our whale watching tours. It is one of few species that don’t mind coming to shallower waters like here in Faxaflói Bay to feed on the abundant food available to them.
The white-beaked dolphin is the most common dolphin found in the surrounding waters of Iceland and is seen not only in the summer but winter too usually in larger numbers, hundreds sometimes. When feeding they show energetic behaviour such as breaching out of the water and coming down with a big splash and bursts of fast swimming.
The Harbour Porpoise is the smallest and most abundant cetacean around Iceland. They are usually shy but occasionally they come and play around the boats. They can be relatively hard to spot from a distance due to their size and their abundance depends entirely on the food availability of our shores since they are opportunistic feeders.