Tuesday, 9 July 2024

Today we will be operating our Classic Whale Watching on our lovely vessel Eldey at 9:00, 13:00, 17:00, 20:30 and our just as lovely Hafsúla at 11:00 and 15:00. Our Premium Whale Watching tour will operate on Þruma I-V at 14:00.

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, 17:00, 20:30
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR |10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 20:00

Report from Eldey: There was a low southerly swell coming into Faxaflói bay this morning, but very calm wind so a lovely day for whale-watching. We sailed out, and before long found a whale that had surfaced behind us. At first, this humpback whale was coming up quite randomly and unpredictably, only taking one breath and then diving for a bit. We waited patiently for the humpback, and to our joy he started surfacing more frequently and even showed his fluke a few times! After some wonderful views of this amazing whale, we headed further out into the bay in search of other marine mammals. Besides lots of Atlantic puffins and great black-backed gulls, we spotted a very fast minke whale for one surface, but she did not come back up in the next few minutes. We headed back to Reykjavík, sailing past the area where we had left the humpback whale and saw his blow in the distance, but it was our time to get back to the harbour after a nice tour.

- Eline van Aalderink

We sailed out in a quite calm bay of Faxafloi with a little bit of wind but the conditions were still very enjoyable. We did not have to wait long until we spotted a blow still quite close to the shore. The blow was caused by a humpback whale. We could stay with it for a while and it repeatedly showed us its fluke. We did not want to disturb that individual for too long so we went further out to see if we could find something else. And we did. After a while 2 elusive harbour porpoises came up right in front of our boat but disappeared as quickly as they came.

-Lasse Roggenkamp

Report from Eldey: We set sail very excited to explore faxafloi bay, the sea was calm and not too windy, making sightings easy. We soon come across a whale on our way, in this case a minke whale. This one was very elusive and shy, showing itself twice before disappearing. We continued on our way and suddenly we saw a shy pod of white beacked dolphins, these were elusive, but little by little they showed themselves more and more, until they adopted a more social behaviour, bowriding, jumping and even slapping their fins against the surface. We decided to leave the dolphins behind when many boats accumulated and suddenly, another minke whale!!!! This one was much friendlier and although sometimes difficult to spot, we were able to see it more than 5 times. To fit in with the schedule we had to start heading back to the harbour, but we stopped for about 5 minutes because we saw another minke whale and a couple of shy harbour porpoise. With each appearance of the whales, the passengers were very excited!

- Sergi Gonzalez

Report from Hafsulan : The second tour of the day for our crew started again with nice conditions just like this morning, good visibility, calm seas and a very mild southwest wind. Not long after leaving the harbour, we stumbled across a pod of playful white-beaked dolphins that decided to come check us out! They were swimming all around the boat and we even got to watch them hunting a school of fish with the help of a few excited black backed seagulls. Shortly after, we encountered a first minke whale in the same area and we could watch it surface a few times not far from us disappearing. We continued our route to find another minke whale ! That individual this time was probably feeding, staying mostly at the surface while swimming in large circle, just thirty meters from out boat. We finally headed back to Reykjavik on the same calm seas that brought us to our first sightings. 

- Olivia Garcia

Report from Eldey: A nice sunlight formed a beautiful backdrop on our sail out into Faxafloi. We spotted a humpback whale, who was swimming quite fast and surfacing all around us. In the same area, we saw three or four minke whales who were feeding among lots of seabirds, and were also coming up in all directions. We were then distracted by some splashes created by around 10 white-beaked dolphins and had a wonderful sighting with some of them quite close to our boat! Time flew by and before we knew it we had to start sailing to Reykjavik, leaving a bay full of life and a beautiful sunset behind us.  

- Eline van Aalderink

We sailed out with a beautiful sunset behind the Snaeffelsness-Peninsula. The sea was very calm and the light was just beautiful. After sailing out for a while we found a pod of about 5 white beaked dolphins that kept changing directions a lot. We did not want to disturb these seemingly feeding dolphins so we headed further out. We found another even more active pod of white beaked dolphins that was very cool to watch because they kept jumping out of the water. Within that area there was also a minke whale that was lunge feeding right next to our boat. Another amazing encounter but the minke whale was also quite elusive and hard to follow. On the way back already there were about 3 harbour porpoises that came up right next to our boat. Good sightings today and beautiful sunset-light on a very calm sea.

-Lasse Roggenkamp