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Wednesday, 7 June 2023
Today we will be operating on Þruma RIB for our 10:00 and 12:00 Premium Whale Watching tours and on our lovely vessel Eldey for the 09:00,13:00 and 17:00 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 | 09:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 10:00
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 14:00
- CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
- PREMIUM WHALE TOUR | 20:00
Today's tours:
This is the original whale watching tour from Reykjavík! Join our highly enthusiastic and experienced team in the search for whales, dolphins and birds of Faxaflói bay! Most common wildlife encountered are humpbacks, minkes, dolphins and porpoises.
An exhilarating premium tour starting from the Old Harbour in Reykjavík, with daily departures from 1 Apr - 31 Oct. A personal, small group tour with only 12 person per boat, a specially trained wildlife guide and a certified RIB boat captain.
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 09:00
Report from Eldey: We started the tour with wonderful sea conditions and a bit of a cloudy sky. We sailed out and suddenly we saw a black back. It was a minke whale. We stopped for it and at one point it surfaced right in front of us. What a beautiful animal!! After that we saw another individual and then we decided to continue a bit further. After some minutes we saw a blow and it was from a humpback!! We got to see it very nicely. Some other humpbacks were seen afterwards. We could see many fluke dives. Right before coming back we saw a pod of around 15 white baked dolphins and that was the strong part of the tour. Such a performance!! They were super close to us and at some point they were breaching all over the place! We saw them 2 humpback whales and 2 minke whales.
-Nicolas Corral
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 13:00
Report from Eldey: We left sunny Reykjavik for a windy and moody ocean. After about an hour of sailing we spotted our first blow - 1 humpback whale! This individual came really close and we could see its whole body through the water as it went for a fluke dive. We stayed with this one for while but as other boats joined decided to head on further into the bay. We saw another humpback which was slightly hidden by another boat, so continued on. We found another humpback whale this one was taking long dives but did come up very close to the boat again. We eventually ran out of time so started our homeward journey. On the way back we saw 2 more fluke dives of 2 more individual humpback whales so we saw 5 in total!
- Anna Richter
CLASSIC WHALE TOUR | 17:00
Report from Eldey: As we all know you cant trust the weather forecast in Iceland and the quick glimpse of sun vanished just as quickly as it appeared. So this late afternoon we sailed out onto a grey cold ocean to see what adventure was in store for us. After about 40min of sailing we saw our first blow - 1 humpback whale! It came up twice to breath and then the third time breached six times in a row ! It is always difficult to predict these behaviours and its fairly rare to see multiple breaches in a row. It then breached again and we saw another humpback whale just next to it as well. After a few more breaches it started waiving at us( pec slapping) and throwing the tail on the surface of the water too! Then we saw more splashes to our right so we went to investigate. It was a breaching minke whale! It breached over 10x and was basically jumping around the boat! Two species breaching in one tour is extremely rare! Then to make it even rarer after the minke had its rest it started up again - what a spectacle! There were 2 more humpback whales and just when we thought that was it another breaching minke! Its difficult to say whether it was 3 different individuals or the same one breaching but it was an absolutely breathtaking tour. Amazing!!!
- Marta Filippini
Bird species encountered today were:
Northern fulmar, Arctic tern, Altantic puffin, Artic skua, razorbill, eider duck, common guillemot, black legged kittiwake, great and lesser black backed gull, black headed gull, herring gull.
Whales 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.