Authorized by the Icelandic Tourist Board
Iceland tourism's official quality label
SPECIAL TOURS SUPPORTS THE LOCAL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
To see the photos from today’s tours click HERE
WHALE WATCHING CLASSIC
9:00
Slight drizzling rain in the bay of Faxafloi. Nevertheless, everyone on board was full of hopes and highly motivated to track down the whales around us. Being aware of the 3B’s of whales watching, it didn’t take us long to spot the first species coming up. A fast travelling pod of white-beaked dolphins passed our way. Whilst we still tried to turn the boat towards them, another curious but a bit slower species surfaced within a short distance. One of the common baleen whales, a minke whale decided to surface a few times, so everyone could get a good impression about its typical surfacing behaviour.
– Ambre Soszynski
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales and white-beaked dolphins.
13:00
Sailing out another time this day towards the feeding grounds in Faxafloi, a slight summer breeze and some waves shaped the tour. Observing already plenty of seabirds out in the bay, there must be lots of food available. Hence, everyone on board was full of hope and motivation to spot all these beautiful animals occurring in the bay. Being on watch, it didn’t took as long to spot the first signs – some smaller splashes further out. And then some dorsal fins appeared, belonging to a pod of travelling white-beaked dolphins. Since dolphins are most times very curious, we also got lucky this tour, and the dolphins started riding the bow and checking us out. What an amazing tour.
– Annika Heimrich
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – White-beaked dolphins.
17:00
The sea was perfectly calm and still for our last whale watching adventure of the day. We sailed out towards the feeding grounds and searched carefully in our most successful locations, undismayed by the slight drizzle that passed overhead during the tour. We saw a nice variety of bird life, including northern fulmars, northern gannets, common guillemots, European storm petrels, and even the odd puffin or two. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our eagle-eyed crew, our whale friends decided not to pay us a visit this evening. We invited all our passengers to come again for free for another chance to see them, an offer that will never expire.
– Jonathan Rempel
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: NO – Passengers invited to come again for free!
WHALE WATCHING EXPRESS
10:00
This morning was a bit rainy but the “Ocean’s God” decided to stop the rain to start this enjoyable experience on board Lilja. We headed towards the feeding grounds, where we know there is plenty of food supply for our friends the cetaceans, which includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Once in the area we could spotted few harbour porpoises popping up quite close to us, which surprise us as they can be quite shy sometimes. It was such a nice sighting seeing those tiny marine mammals! Then, we kept on watch when we spotted some awesome minke whales feeding around. They were having some yummy morning breakfast. Finally, we also got to see a group (also called pod or school) of white-beaked dolphins. There was a really young calf in the group, we could tell it was so young because of the size, dorsal size and the lighter colour compared to adults which have darker patterns. Definitely was such a nice experience being part of the magnificent wildlife inhabiting Faxaflói waters!
– Agnès Torres Ramis
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales, white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises.
14:00
The weather conditions were fantastic as we were sailing out on Lilja for our second whale watching tour of the day. The sun was shining beautifully and the seas were calm, creating excellent conditions for whale watching, so we were quite hopeful of seeing whales as we were sailing out into Faxaflói. Once we reached the feeding grounds, we were able to see our first whales of the day, which were some adorable harbour porpoises. There were plenty of porpoises around, so we were actually able to get a rather good look at those tiny toothed whales. We then continued our search, hoping to find something larger than those porpoises. We had very little luck in finding signs of whale activity throughout the tour, but we kept our eyes fixated on the water surface around us. In the end it paid off, as we found a lovely pod of white-beaked dolphins. The dolphins were quite calm, surfacing slowly around us and giving us a great look at them. As we were admiring the dolphins, we also spotted a larger whale in the distance. As we got closer, we realized that it was a minke whale, the second largest whale species of Faxaflói bay. This all happened at the very end of the tour, so we were eventually able to see 3 out of the 4 whale species of the bay. In the end, we were quite happy with the sightings we had on the tour, so we just enjoyed a lovely cruise in the calm seas back towards the Old Harbour in Reykjavík.
– Emil Sölvi Ágústsson
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales, white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises.
RIB EXPRESS
09:00
When searching Faxafloi bay for wildlife, we were able to spot a pod of white-beaked dolphins! They surfaced close to our boat when they were checking us out! In the end, we got a glimpse of a rare basking shark! A very nice bonus to our tour!
-Ronald Smit
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – White-beaked dolphins and a basking shark.
11:00
We started this tour with a sighting of a grey seal! Not a very common sighting, and therefore a good start of the tour! After that, we were able to spot a beautiful minke whale! And towards the end of our tour, we were able to get a glimpse of a rare basking shark! This made our tour complete!
-Ronald Smit
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whale, basking shark and a seal.
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – White-beaked dolphins.
16:00
During this tour we were able to spot a minke whale! It was feeding, and it surfaced close to us several times. We also enjoyed the diving northern gannets at the end of our tour!
-Ronald Smit
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whale.
Authorized by the Icelandic Tourist Board
Iceland tourism's official quality label
SPECIAL TOURS SUPPORTS THE LOCAL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL