Minke Day in the Bay

17.Jul 2019

To see the photos from today’s tours click HERE!

WHALE WATCHING CLASSIC

9:00

We left the harbour in a very beautiful weather this morning. No wind, no waves and no rain but many whale watchers on board, and these are the perfect conditions to enjoy a Whale Watching adventure!!

As soon as we arrived in the feeding grounds of the whales we spotted the first minke whale of the day, but many more were feeding in the same area.

We spent one hour in good company of these friendly giants, enjoying the good weather too.

-Annika Heimrich

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales

13:00

We sailed again in a very beautiful bay this afternoon. This weather keeps treating us and we take full advantage of it to go whale watching in the Faxfloi bay. As soon as we arrived in the feeding grounds of the giants we could see a whale from far away. At the beginning whales have been shy but finally we found a friendly minke whale!! We spent about 15 minutes with this incredible creature, who came to check us out few times, at less than 10 meters from the boat.

AMAZING!!

-Annika Heimrich

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales

17:00

Sailing into Faxafloi for the third time this day, all hopes were high. Having a great visibility and even some smaller rainbows spread along the coast, all passengers and crew started looking for some fins and blows to appear. Since plenty of seabirds became visible already soon after we started the tour, there must be lots of food available these days. Unfortunately though, even if we tried a bit longer than usual, we could not see any whales, and we had to go back to the harbour without sightings.

We would like to invite all our passengers to join us for free whenever they have the chance to do so, as we really would like to show them our beautiful whales!

-Federico Facchin

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: NO – Passengers invited to try again for free!

WHALE WATCHING EXPRESS

10:00

The weather was much better than we originally thought it would be when we set sail for our Whale Watching Express tour on Lilja. There was almost no wind and it was actually sunny, something that is never a given in this beautiful country. We made our way into Faxaflói bay, very hopeful to find some cool cetaceans to observe. Once we reached the feeding grounds, we noticed that there were a lot of birds around, which suggested that there was plenty of food around for the whales as well. That proved to be accurate, because we soon saw our first whale of the day, a gorgeous minke whale. The minke whale was not alone, as we saw a few other minke whales in the same area. They all seemed to be looking for food as they were almost always heading towards large groups of birds, a clear indicator of food availability. Throughout the tour we saw some more minke whales and we even saw a few of them surface right next to our boat, giving our passengers a fantastic look at them. We continued to observe the lovely minke whales until we ran out of time and had to make our way back to the Old Harbour in sunny Reykjavík.

– Emil Sölvi Ágústsson

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales

14:00

We started our adventure sailing into the largest bay existent in Iceland, Faxaflói. Once in the feeding grounds we could spot thousands of seabirds gathering all together in a big flock. Seabirds feeding usually are a good indicator of having some cetaceans in the area, as they both feed on the same species. For this reason we decided to stop and check the area for a while, when a minke whale decided to surface. There were more than one individual feeding and going up to exhale and inhale some new and fresh air. It was such an experience observing those individuals!

– Agnès Torres Ramis

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales

21:00

9 o’clock in the evening might not sound like a good time to go whale watching. But in Reykjavík in the summer, this is a perfect time! This is because we have the midnight sun, and this can cause some beautiful lights in the skies! So, we set out to the feeding grounds and started searching for wildlife. The skies were already beautiful, but the real light show would come later. We were very happy that we spotted some white-beaked dolphins after some time! These beautiful animals always help you to get in a better mood! Especially when they come so close! We enjoyed the sail around the bay and headed back to Reykjavík after another great tour.

– Ronald Smit

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – White beaked dolphins

RIB EXPRESS

09:00

We headed into Faxa Bay for the first tour of the day with a beautifully flat ocean. This was unlike the wildlife out there, which was alive as ever. Hundreds of hunting birds and at least 6 minke whales circled around us for over an hour!

– Ambre Soszynski

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales

11:00

We were happily surprised to see that the conditions and wildlife were still the same out at sea. We found several minke whales again, some individuals being the same as we had spotted in the morning!

– Ambre Soszynski

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales

14:00

The wind peaked up in the afternoon but this didn´t stop our adventurous passengers! Thanks to many flocks of actively hunting birds, we spotted several minke whales feeding. It seems like it was a food party the whole day!

– Ambre Soszynski

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales

16:00

The last tour of the day was as pleasant as the previous ones as we found the hunting minke whales again. Our passengers got lucky to have a last look at them before they started leaving the area. Food party over for today!

– Ambre Soszynski

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales