Wednesday, 21 August 2024

• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, 19:00
• CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
• PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 9:00, 10:00, 12:00, 13:00, 15:00

Report from Eldey: amazing whale watching this morning! We set out carefully as the winds were strong, and headed north towards the opposite coast to stay protected. And the bet paid off!! Shortly after leaving we could see blows to our left, and bingo! After not much of a wait we spotted a humpback whale! It was a gorgeous individual, spending lots of time on the surface and doing repetitive and elegant fluke dives. After a bit with it we moved on and we found a fin whale! That was amazing, as we don't see them very often. This is the second largest species of baleen whale, so seeing one is a truly wonderful experience. We stayed with it for some time, and then we continued our search, and as we sailed, we found a group of 5 harbour porpoises. They swam super fast and people loved it. Next we found another humpback, making a total of 2 individuals. It was a very successful tour.

- Rodrigo Ruiz Esquide

Report from Elding: Sailing out in an excessive wind this morning, we wee surprised that the sea was flat enough for us to sail out. Following guidance from other boats, we found our amazing first sighting: 1 fin whale, a very rare animal in Faxafloi bay, was feeding in front of Hvalfjörður. We stayed with it for a very long time, as it didn't care for our presence and kept diving close to our boat. We decided to later try our luck closer to the shore, to hide from the wind. To our great surprise, many Arctic terns, Northern fulmar and Northern gannets were hovering to feed. Suddenly, 1 humpback whale appeared top us, fluke diving, lunge feeding many times, plenty for all to see and film. Going back home, we could only feel that, given today's conditions and sightings, all passengers on board were happy and our jib was well done.

- Alex Paumier

Report from Eldey: A bit of northerly wind made for a cold welcome in the bay, but the waves were not too high so we had a calm ride out towards the whales. We found two humpback whales extremely close to land (in waters of around 5 meter depth!) who were feeding synchronously. After some incredible moments with these two, we continued further into the bay and spotted an enormous blow. This blow belonged to a fin whale - the second largest animal on Earth! It was incredible to see this impressive animal from so close. Since he was traveling at quite the speed, we couldn´t follow him for too long so we parted ways and quickly found a third, quite small humpback whale. He was feeding by himself, but diving for quite long so we decided to head back to the area where it had all started to find the two synchronously feeding humpback whales. These two were still very close to land, although they also decided to check out our boat so we got some very close up looks at them - amazing! 

- Eline van Aalderink

Report from Hafsulan: Lunchtime in Faxafloi bay. We sailed out in windy conditions but we did not have to wait long for our first sighting. We spotted close to the coast 3 blows that were all caused by humpback whales. Within that area there were about 5 individuals that all seemed to be feeding. But there were not only feeding humpback whales but also many plunge diving northern Gannets which was beautiful to watch as well.

-Lasse Roggenkamp

Report from Eldey: There we sailed with rough seas but nothing could take our excitement from this sea adventure, we sailed around 35 minutes on direction to Esja and after an extra 10 minutes we observed 3 breaching at the distance, what a great way to start the tour seeing the  humpback whale breaching, after further sailing we start to see a very fast approach from a minke whale, what a beautiful surprise to see them back sailing at the bay again and than after 10 minutes, even more surprise the second biggest whale on the planet sailing at the bay!!, how wonderful!!! A Fin whale was swimming feeding together with the gannets that where diving fishing, so the bay was amazingly active, after we left the fin whale we saw 3 humpback whale in the distance, indeed this was a beautiful tour filled with other species that we commonly don't witness, our time was up, but meanwhile we sailed back to Reykjavik we enjoyed the beautiful sunset behind us, once more we can say this was a very successful tour.

Claudia Albir