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Wednesday, 4 October 2023
Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 and 14:00 Premium Whale tour and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00 and 13:00 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 | 9:00, 13:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00, 14:00
CLASSIC WHALE WATCHING | 0900
Report from Eldey: We sailed out on some lovely, calm seas this morning. After sailing for a little bit we saw our first cetaceans. It was a pod of 10-15 jumping white beaked dolphins. We got a really nice look at them as they came close to us too. We then saw a lone harbour porpoise which surfaced a lot around the back of our boat making it fairly easy to spot this small cetacean. Over the next 10 minutes or so we spotted 3 minke whales but they all only surfaced a couple times. Luckily, our passengers did still manage to see them. We also saw another 3 pods of dolphins bringing the total number of individuals to 20-30 over the tour. Then as we started to head back we saw a big black body and a fluke. It was a humpback whale. After seeing it this first time we had to carry on but the humpback wanted to make sure everyone saw it. So it gave us another fluke dive on our left. Hopefully this will be the start of the humpbacks returning.
- Rob Hyman
CLASSIC WHALE WATCHING | 1300
Report from Eldey: We sailed out in the cold and cloudy afternoon, joyful to see the sea flat and visibility high. Soon into our tour, a single minke whale glided past us, but only few saw it. This aroused everyone´s attention and, soon enough, we encountered our main sighitng of the afternoon: for the following hours, we encountered several pods of white beaked dolphins, some jumping, some feeding gladfuly, some bowriding. Seeing north of 30 individuals throughout our tour, we decided to head back to the spots we had found some bigger whales, without any chance, making this a dolphin day.
- Alexandre Paumier
Wildlife encountered today:
The Humpback Whale is quite spectacular undergoing the longest migration of any mammal (5176miles/8334km one way), attracting females by singing to them and of course their energetic nature. On many occasions humpbacks have been seen breaching, tail slapping, fin slapping, blowing bubbles and spy hopping just to mention a few. The humpback is also one of the larger whales we encounter
The Minke Whale is the most common whale around Iceland and actually the world thus it is one of the main species we encounter on our whale watching tours. It is one of few species that don’t mind coming to shallower waters like here in Faxaflói Bay to feed on the abundant food available to them.
The white-beaked dolphin is the most common dolphin found in the surrounding waters of Iceland and is seen not only in the summer but winter too usually in larger numbers, hundreds sometimes. When feeding they show energetic behaviour such as breaching out of the water and coming down with a big splash and bursts of fast swimming.
The Harbour Porpoise is the smallest and most abundant cetacean around Iceland. They are usually shy but occasionally they come and play around the boats. They can be relatively hard to spot from a distance due to their size and their abundance depends entirely on the food availability of our shores since they are opportunistic feeders.
Bird species encountered today:
glaucous gull, herring gull, black backed gull, black legged kittiwake, sooty shearwater, manx shearwater, razorbills, common guillemots, eider ducks, Northern gannet