Authorized by the Icelandic Tourist Board
Iceland tourism's official quality label
SPECIAL TOURS SUPPORTS THE LOCAL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
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This morning the sky was quite clear with just a little breeze in the air. We had 78 adventurous passengers who boarded our great Andrea and got cozy in our warm overalls. The conditions out at sea were much better than in our previous days with only small waves around giving us good visibility for spotting the whales. We headed out into the middle of the bay and pretty quickly on we spotted a minke whale, but unfortunately this one seemed to be a bit shy and swam out of our view just as fast as it came into our view. We then headed further into the bay where we found not one but two humpback whales! which were swimming together, they seemed to be feeding on fish around the bottom of the sea as they were taking very long dives but this gave us a chance to see their flukes after taking deep dives which made up for it. It is likely that these two are good friends that use teamwork for more efficient hunting. We spent a good while following these two come up for air and blow their spouts many times but after a while we decided we wanted to see if we could find something else instead of the same two humpback whales. After just 5 minutes of exploring around, we came across another minke whale, this one was a bit more friendly and stook around long enough to see it come up for air maybe 3-5 times before we lost it, at which point we were out of time so we headed back to the harbor.
-Patrick Jens
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: Humpback Whale and Minke Whale
This afternoon the sky was shining bright with only a little breeze in the air. We had 137 adventurous passengers who boarded our great Andrea and got cozy in our warm overalls. The conditions out at sea had worsened a bit from our earlier tour but only a bit with slightly larger small waves. We headed out into the middle of the bay where we had seen some whales in our earlier tour, on our way there we came across a minke whale which we followed for a bit and managed to see come up maybe 2-3 times. While we were looking for it to come up again we suddenly saw a humpback whale breaching in the distance so we headed directly towards it instead. It only did it once but we managed to find it again from its spout, it seemed to be heading towards two other boats which informed us that they had found another two humpback whales there, so it is likely that the other whales had signaled this whale and it breached as a reply that it was coming to join them. We followed the humpback whale as it caught up to the other whales and as it did so we got to see its fluke a few times. Once they had met up we saw them swim around together and then they all took a deep dive together for a long time. When they did resurface one had appeared behind us while the other two appeared much further ahead of us. We followed the two in front of us for a bit but were then running out of time so we headed back in hopes of finding the other one again but it seemed to already have left the area.
– Patrick Jens
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: Humpback Whales and Minke Whale
The wind was getting colder and stronger in the evening, so the waves in the bay also got higher, which strongly limited our visibility. Leaving towards the middle of the bay we saw a minke whale! It surfaced close to the boat 3 times, but it was so shy that we could hardly see it. We continued the boat ride towards the middle of the bay to say “hi” to our 3 humpback friends we saw earlier this afternoon. Unfortunately, there were nowhere to find and even if we searched a huge part of the bay, we found no sign of a humpback whale, so we offered all guests complimentary tickets for our next tour. Fingers crossed!
-Iga Meister
Tour Status: Rough Seas
Sightings: No, all passengers welcome to join us for a complimentary tour
What crazy ride it has been. From doing puffin tours in the early morning and doing puffin tours in the afternoon; it just so happened that the guide on this tour was flying inbetween tours and managed to see some amazing cetacean activity that day as well. The minke whales were plentiful and surfacing all around the boat. They were coming close in such a way that I kindly asked the passengers ‘not to pet the animals’. Jokes aside, it was an amazing experience that complimented my puffin tours perfectly, as not only did I get happy puffin people, but happy whale people as well. What a combo!
-Lucas Heinrich
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: Minke Whale and White Beaked Dolphins
This afternoon welcome us with clear skies and sunshine but also a super cold breeze. The conditions out at sea had worsened a bit from our earlier tour but only a bit with slightly larger waves. We headed out into the middle of the bay and after some search we found not one, not two but 3 humpback whales! The biggest whale was the leader, the others followed information and like this, all three were diving in a few about 2 seconds break from each other. We saw several dives, most with the tail, oh what a show, almost like in one of the David Attenborough movies from Alaska. Absolutely fantastic!
-Iga Meister
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: TBD
For this first tour of the day, we had good hopes to meet beautiful animals in the bay since the wind calmed down over the night. The sun was shining, it was still a bit windy but not enough to stop us from exploring the ocean. We went directly out into the bay to look for some whales. It did not take us long to see some dorsal fins between the waves and it was a pod of white-beaked dolphins! It was 3 of them, and they were not really in a playful mood we manage to observe them but then we decided to leave them alone and we kept exploring the area. Later we found another pod of dolphins! those ones were more curious and less busy feeding. We saw babies with their mothers in the group it was really cute! They came to us really close to the boat and played around us for a bit. Really nice encounter! Then, we kept sailing to try to find a whale maybe and we actually found two of them! They were humpback whales, They were traveling together maybe feeding as well since they are a lot of fish here. We stay with them for some time and soon it was time to go back to Reykjavik Horbar! But this tour really announced a pretty nice day!!
– Alice
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: Humpback Whale and White Beaked Dolphins
After having really nice encounter on the previous tour, we expected the wildlife to offer us a really nice show again! And it actually did! We sailed out into Faxafloi bay on our beautiful RIB boat Dagmar to find some whales. And after a few moments, we spotted not one but two blows coming from the surface! It was 2 humpback whales! They were traveling together and feeding together. They came pretty close to the boat and we even manage to see the flukes of the whales! The fluke helps us to identify the whale since they all have a different pattern and I recognise the same whales from the previous tour so those whales stayed in the same area. There might be a lot of fish under the surface. We stayed with them for quite some time and then we finally decided to go to Akurey, the puffin Island. We saw a lot of them over there. Some of them were flying with fish in their beak which means they were bringing food to the nest where there might be a puffling, a baby puffin! It was really nice to see all those birds to finish this tour and soon it was time for us to go back to the harbor!
– Alice
Tour Status: ON
Sightings: Humpback Whales
Tour Status: CANCELLED
Sightings: TBD
Tour Status: CANCELLED
Sightings: TBD
Authorized by the Icelandic Tourist Board
Iceland tourism's official quality label
SPECIAL TOURS SUPPORTS THE LOCAL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL