Wednesday, 1 September 2021

Report from Eldey: The tour started smoothly very easy ride. A group of white-beaked dolphins came to our way, one of them was even jumping in front of the boat, and then all the sudden disappeared. Soon after blows could be seen at the distance, it was when we were a little bit closer that we realized that it was a humpback whale. The sightings were incredible close and we could see every detail of the whale that was very chilled with our presence. After all our guests had time to make all the beautiful moments and pictures we resumed our search for something else. While being with the humpback whale, white-beaked dolphins showed up, some of them where pretty near of the humpback whale, probably interacting. After some time we could see the humpback whale rolling and showing us its beautiful flippers. Once we were already on our way back to the harbour we spotted a humpback whale. It was a shy and elusive one that was diving a lot of minutes, though. So after a few attempts keeping track of it we decided to finally had back home. Another superb ride with Elding!

- Estel Sanchez Cami

Report from RIB : Today the weather does not look great. Wind from the south and overcast sky with a little bit of rain just before we left. But the tour was super nice. We found a very a nice humpback whale that seems to be playing with a pod of white-beaked dolphins, rolling on the side and putting its snout out of the water. The dolphins were disappearing at the same time as the humpback so maybe there were still interacting under the surface. The did not see the dolphins anymore but we could observe a few beautiful fluke dives from the humpback. We were completely stopped when a passenger asked if the whales were coming at us sometimes. The humpback decided to answer coming at us surfacing just a few meters from the boat ! I hope this whale did not have a covid-19 because we were all sprayed by its blow !

- Miquel Pons

Report from Eldey: We motored out with 5-7m/s winds coming in from the south, which made it a little chilly on the way out but most were dressed warmly and others could use the free overalls we have available onboard. After 1 hour in we saw our first cetacean, a humpback whale. It was obviously busy feeding near the seabed as it was doing roughly 8min dives, we we have to be quite patient. Soon more boats started to arrive so we left the area and soon found another humpback whale, this one at first was doing 11min dives but soon started to become more active at the surface, showing its beautiful fluke and only diving for about 2-3mins which meant we didn´t have to wait as long and were able to get more great humpie pictures. Time was running out so we had to head home but on the way we were surprised by a very playful pod of 6-10 white-beaked dolphins with calves, was not so playful with us but with each others. It was just lovely to see the young dolphins leaping around its mother and carers. A nice tour. 

- Megan Whittaker

Report from RIB : Conditions were similar to this morning, overcast choppy and a bit windy. But it was another great tour. First we spotted a minke whale. This minke was not surfacing again so we decided to continue. We stopped for a second minke whale that turns out to be extremely curious, coming close to the boat and circling around us for 15 minutes. It was not full size so probably a juvenile. When this whale was not coming to us anymore we went for more animals and found a humpback whale. Meanwhile we were waiting for this whale to surface, we spotted another tiny minke whale that surfaced 2 or 3 times. This humpback was not very easy to spot, moving fast and not showing the tail so we decided to try another that we knew other boats could see earlier further away. We went, found the blow of the animal and approached carefully. Then the humpback whale breached ! It was amazing to see this huge animal fully getting out of the water with such class, spinning meanwhile it was in the air and falling in big splashes. Breathtaking ! The animal was much more calm after that, surfacing maximum two times before the deep dive. We stayed a bit and went back to Reykjavik. On the way back we found 10-12 white-beaked dolphins. They had little ones and were not really in the mood to be seen with quite elusive behaviour. From respectful distance we could see the calves doing some cute little jumps. Great tour !

- Miquel Pons