An Amazing Tour With Humpbacks & Minkes!

WHALE WATCHING CLASSIC

09:00

What an amazing morning on the water! We sailed out in perfectly calm seas towards the feeding grounds of Faxaflói Bay, eager to see what awaited us today. On our way out, we had a nice encounter with a minke whale, but continued farther to see what else could be spotted. We soon found ourselves in an area absolutely filled with more minke whales – it seemed that in every direction we looked, the smooth, dark back and pointed dorsal fin of a minke could be seen at the surface.

But the minke whales weren’t alone – far in the distance we could see a large splash at the surface, again and again. When we approached the area, we found a pod of white-beaked dolphins! But wait, dolphins aren’t nearly large enough to make those splashes – it was in fact a breaching humpback whale! And there was another one close by! We followed the pair of humpbacks as minke whales sprang up all around us, and incredibly, one of the humpbacks breached many more times, every 5 minutes or so like clockwork. At one point it breached less than 10 meters from our boat on the right side – I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so close!

Eventually time ran short and we said goodbye to these amazing animals, and we began our journey back to the harbor. What a great way to start the day!

– Jonathan Rempel
Instagram: @jon.rempel

Tour Status: ON

Sightings: YES! Humpback whales, minke whales and white-beaked dolphins!

13:00

The wind started to pick up a bit for this afternoon tour, nevertheless we had wonderful sunny moments, and here and then some cloud layers moving through. Getting everyone on the same page for the 3B’s of whale watching, we soon started to spot more and more bird activity, indicating lots of prey availability in the upper water layers – a promising sign. Sailing through the feeding grounds, we spotted a massive blow far ahead. Hence, we started to turn the boat towards it and kept sailing, another blow….Soon after a large, black-greyish back appears and then the  fluke of a humpback whale.Brilliant! We waited for some minutes, all on high alert, to spot the animal again. The humpback surfaced for 6-7 more times before it vanished back into the depth, lifting its fluke again right in front of us.
We continued our ride and spotted a large flock of birds gathering together, so we kept our eyes peeled into that direction. And then another species surfaced. A slender, fast swimming minke whale rushed right through the flock of birds, on a hunt. We got lucky and could observe at least two minke whales over around 15min feeding alongside the birds before we started to head back towards Reykjavik.

– Annika Heimrich 

Tour Status: ON

Sightings: YES! Humpback whales, minke whales and harbour porpoises!

Photos from today’s tours can be found here!