Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Today we will be operating our Classic Whale Watching on our lovely vessel Eldey at 9:00, 13:00, 17:00 our just as lovely Hafsúlan at 11:00, 15:00 and 19:00. Our Premium Whale Watching tour will operate on Þruma I-V at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00 and 20:00.

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

Report from Eldey: Sailing out this morning, the clouds followed us throughout the tour, never reaching the point of rain. We quickly came upon 1 very intriguing minke whale, diving a couple of times and even lunge feeding in front of us. Quite happy with this sighting, as we hadn´t seen minke whales in a couple of weeks, we continued to find 1 humpback whale, fluke diving several times. Later on we went to find several pods (around 10 individuals) of white beaked dolphins, with 3 individuals coming again close to our boat right before we left. As the other pods roamed around our way back, we happily went home, having seen 3 out of our 4 main species.

- Milan Vansteelandt

Report from Elding: Sea conditions were calm today when we started our 11 am whale-watching tour. The temperature was a bit cold, but our passengers surpassed this by dressing our onboard overalls and going to the outside part of our ship, to help us scan the ocean for whales. As we´ve been having many baleen whales for the past few weeks, we focused mainly on finding these. But our 1st sighting started with something else, a pod of white-beaked dolphins.  And a good pod it was, with around 15 dolphins, many doing breaches and approaching our ship to swim by our side in a behaviour called bow-riding. After having some fun with these 3-meter-sized dolphins, we continued our search, going back to our attempt to find (baleen) whales. This took a very short period, since less than 10 minutes after leaving the dolphins, we spotted a blow ahead of our ship. As we approached, we saw the enormous, dark body of the animal, and we then knew for sure that we were in the presence of a humpback whale. We spent some time with the whale, as it came to the surface to breathe, before deep diving again, probably to hunt for fish. At one point, the whale surfaced 5 meters from the ship, leaving everyone in awe! As we returned to Reykjavík, we were entertained by multiple marine bird species resting and hunting in the ocean.

-Ricardo Mendes

Report from Eldey: Sailing out again in this windy afternoon, we hoped to reiterate the sightings of this morning. Quite early in the tour, we managed to see 2 humpback whales, with which we stayed for a very good and long time. The first one, a smaller (probably younger) individual, nicely fluke dived a couple of times before coming very close to us, for all to easily see its blowhole and body. We then spotted our second friend, a recuring sighting of the last few weeks, diving to scan the water under us to feed. As we searched without much chance for other possible sightings in the bay, our 2 humpback friends kept diving and feeding, even as we went back to Reykjavik, with a very cold but nice tour this afternoon.

- Alex Paumier

Report from Hafsulan: We sailed out in a bit choppy sea, facing a bit of wind. After a while we spotted 2 blows in the diustance and decided to approach carefully. It turned out that there were 2 humpback whales feeding in that area. One of them came up very close to our boat and we got to see that individual very well. It showed us its fluke several times, was lunge-feeding during our encounter and also rolled itself on the back so we even saw its bellyside. It was a very special encounter and everybody enjoyed it.

-Lasse Roggenkamp 

Report from Eldey: the wind had picked up a bit but so did the swell. Nevertheless we happily sailed out into Faxafloi. After sailing for some time we spotted two separate blows closely together, which was the clear sign of 2 humpback whales in the area. They did seem to disperse a bit so we stayed for some time with the first, who breached once in the distance and also rolled around twice near the surface! When we moved on to the second onem that one breached as well! Both individuals were very busy feeding, fluke diving a lot and so before we even realised, time had already ran out and it was time for us head back home.

- Milan Vansteelandt

North Atlantic puffin (including juvenile), Northern fulmar, black legged kittiwake, Northern gannet (including juvenile), Arctic tern (including juvenile), lesser black-backed gull (including juvenile)