The Whales Are Excited Today

You can download the photos of today’s tour here!

WHALE WATCHING CLASSIC

09:00

What a wonderful day for whale watching today! We have had so much activity in the bay these days and the lucky streak just kept on. The weather was fantastic all day long, with calm seas and a mixture of clouds and sun. Just as we like it! And luck was indeed very much in our favour and we very soon spotted a humpback whale‘s blow not far away! As we headed there, we chased this beautiful humpback for a while who showed off its fluke a few times. The excitement rose, however, as we were soon rewarded with one of the most amazing sightings on our tour – a breach!! The humpback threw its face out of the water several times and let it crash down with a huge splash! It did this at least seven times or so, before it even turned itself on its back while breaching, showing off its ventral pleats on its belly, stretching towards the navel. This humpback whale was clearly in an enthusiastic mood! I stopped talking for a while and just let our passengers and crew enjoy this fantastic show. After it breached a few times, it turned on its side and slapped its white pectoral fins, or flippers, on the water a few times. Such interesting behaviour! Us humans have the four following theories of why these whales breach and slap their fins: 1) to knock off parasites, 2) to communicate to other whales in the area with the loud sound of these splashes, 3) to stun fish for easier feeding or 4) simply out of pure enjoyment! The tour truly couldn’t get any better than that, but as we traveled onwards, we found yet another humpback whale, a slightly lazier one that was swimming slowly onwards, probably in the feeding process, sticking out its fluke a few times to go for deeper dives. What a fantastic tour!
– Sophie Kass

Tour Status: ON

Sightings: YES – Breaching humpback whales

13:00

The only thing that could top today’s earlier tour was seeing even more species today, and the second tour turned out to fulfill just this hope! As we headed out into the bay, we soon spotted a minke whale a few times, but it was a bit shy and we soon lost track of it. However, the lucky passengers of our second tour of the day got to see the humpback whale from earlier on today as well, soon after! It was in the feeding process now, but once it lifted its tail entirely out of the water and slapped it fiercely onto the water surface, which was an awe-inspiring view! After that, we followed this whale for quite a while, and it was super relaxed now, swimming closely to the water surface, allowing us to track it by spotting its white flukes shimmering through the water surface. We also got to see its fluke a few times more as it lifted it out of the water to go for a deeper dive. It seemed kind of sleepy, so we left it to possibly take a little afternoon nap and headed onwards. We once again spotted a minke whale on our way out, but this one also disappeared rather quickly. However, just as we neared the end of our tour and before we had to turn around to head back to the harbour, we spotted a pod of four white-beaked dolphins traveling together! At least one mother and calf were among them, and they surfaced a few times around us, sometimes swimming right underneath our boat and coming up beside or behind us again. Such cute and super-awesome animals! With those three species sightings under our belt, including a rare display of the humpback whale’s tail splashing, we happily returned to the harbour.
– Sophie Kass

Tour Status: ON

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

RIB EXPRESS

11:00

It was a beautiful, sunny day and the water surface was calm, so it was super easy to spot animals in the bay this morning. We were searching the bay for a very short while and then we got surrendered by a big pod of white–beakeddolphins, diving in just in front of us! We saw a young humpbackwhale that came close to us! And to make this tour a real treat we also met a huge humpbackwhale slapping its pectoral fins! Wow! What a tour ! 

-Iga Meister 

Tour Status: ON

Sightings: YES – Humpback whales and white-beaked dolphins

14:00

It was a sunny afternoon and the water surface was calm, so it was quite easy to spot animals in the bay. We were searching the bay for a short while and we found the first humpbackwhale! Just few minutes after we saw another humpback whale, slapping his pectoral fins and jumping around ! Such a beautiful day in the bay! 

-Iga Meister 

Tour Status: ON

Sightings: YES – Breaching humpback whales