Tuesday 7th of June 2022

Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 12:00, 14:00 and 20:00 Premium Whale tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00,10:00, 13:00, 14:00 and 17:00 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 | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 12:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00

Report from Eldey: With sunshine starting to appear behind the clouds this morning we were happy to sail out into Faxaflói for our classic whale watching tour. We quickly reached an area with seabirds everywhere we looked, and not long after we saw a blow of a humpback whale. In the distance we saw another blow, so it seemed like there were a few individuals around this productive area. The first individual we watched was taking long dives of almost ten minutes, so after a few times we decided to check out the other one. The second individual came to the surface much more frequently, and often showed us the beautiful black fluke when it went for a deep, 4 minute-dive. After this beautiful sighting we took another circle to explore an area with even more seabirds, and there we saw blows of probably three different individuals. We stayed some time with one of them, but that made us a little bit late to Reykjavík harbour because it was hard to say goodbye to this beautiful animal. With the memory of those 4 or 5 humpback whales we then sailed back happily towards the mainland. 

- Eline van Aalderink

Report from Elding : Today the swell is quite light but there is some wind as we sail out of the harbour. It was about 40 minutes after the beginning of the tour we spotted our first humpback whale blow. The humpback offered us some nice close looks but kept on changing direction so we decided to leave it after a few minutes and head toward an area we heard had some whales feeding. As we got to that area we noticed 4 blows to more and got surrounded by whales. All of the humpback whales in the area were followed by flocks of arctic terns, waiting for the whale to bring the fish to the surface to have a feast. We got to observe at least one minke whale, to maybe two, that appeared in the middle of the group of the feeding humpbacks. We also had the chance of seeing a few lunge feeding feeding behaviour, which is the whale rolling on its side opening widely the mouth to take a large gulp of fish. After an amazing sighting, it was unfortunately time for us to head back to the shore.

- Melanie Magnan

Report from Eldey: warm day at Faxaflói bay! The trip started with the sun shining on the ship, with many clouds passing by and a calm wind from the south east. The sea was almost flat, providing a comfortable trip. We sailed towards the same spot in which we saw humpback whales feeding in the morning, to find them - or maybe even other ones - still feeding. Many species of seabirds (mainly arctic terns, gulls, fulmars, and even some arctic skuas) were flying in the sky, trying to make the most out of the day. Often, when a whale would bring some food to the surface, the birds would plunge to the water to pick up the small fish or krill that was spilling from the whale's mouth. Many whales were around the area (about ten), all very far away from each other and all very busy feeding. We tried following four of them, but it proved to be quite a tricky task, as they fluke (deep) dived frequently and for a long time, almost certainly to go after some schools of their prey. In any case we managed to have a great sight of their under-fluke, which is the identity card for the humpbacks, thus very important for research. On the way back the wind picked up and the clouds covered the sun, but it was still warm enough that an overall was not necessary. A humpback blowed and showed the fluke, saluting us not too long before entering Reykjavik's harbour.

-Francesco Golin

Report from Elding: The swell calmed down a lot and we left Reykjavik. As we ventured out we saw a few blows in the distance and heard about a group of humpback whales near Eldey. As we were on our way there we encountered a very calm humpback whale very close to us and decided to stay with this individual a bit. While we were watching we saw more blows in the distance. After it continued, so did we and quickly found another one! We found one more humpack whale that showed us the fluke a few times before disappearing. It was a beautiful end to our journey and we headed back home.

- Anna Richter

Report from Eldey: The wind lowered this evening To provide us with perfect sailing conditions for tonight's tour. We hadn't even passed the Grótta lighthouse when out of nowhere a minke whale calf came up right next to the boat. This young individual was probably not much larger than 3 meters, and was swimming by itself close to the shore of Reykjavík and we decided to leave her/him alone and go further into the bay. In the distance we saw a dark silhouette of a whale's body come out of the water, followed by an impressive splash: there was a breaching humpback whale! When we reached the area the whale had calmed down and there was another boat there, so we decided to stay around another individual we encountered along the way. This whale with its dark fluke was clearly feeding so after some time we wanted to check out the other humpback whale, and also 8-10 white-beaked dolphins that had arrived. The dolphins were playful and curious, the nursing pod coming very close to our boat and especially the calves were enthusiastically jumping out of the water. In the meantime, not one but two humpback whales came up at the same time so we almost didn't know where to look. The dolphins and humpback whales joined together, showing us the beautiful diversity of nature and the interconnectedness of these two very different species. How lucky that we were there to experience it! 

- Eline van Aalderink

Eider duck, common guillemot, atlantic puffin, arctic tern, northern gannet, northern fulmar, Iceland gull, arctic skua, herring gull, greater black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, black-legged kittiwake