Pilot Whales in Faxaflói

12.Aug 2018

WHALE WATCHING CLASSIC

9:00 

Cloudy sky and a beautiful view towards Snæfellsness promised only good for this first trip today. Consequently, our boat Andrea made its way throughout the Icelandic waters ready to explore this incredible nature. Numerous northern gannets appeared already shortly after we left the harbour area, guiding the boat straight towards our first sighting – a pod of white-beaked dolphins. Following theses amazing animals they appeared to be extremely playful breaching in front of the boat and enjoying riding within the waves! Heading a bit further we got lucky again by spotting also a minke whale, making its way through the waves of Faxafloí’s bay. What a good trip!

– Annika Heimrich

Tour Status: ON 
Sightings: YES – Minke whale and white-beaked dolphins.

13:00 

For our second whale watching adventure of the day, we were excited to go out and see what else Faxaflói Bay had in store for us. The experienced crew of the Andrea searched all around us, hoping for a sign of our cetacean friends.

Fortunately, we had nice encounters with minke whales, the most common baleen whales spotted in these waters for most of the year, and harbour porpoises, the tiniest toothed whales in the North Atlantic and always a nice sight to see, even if they can be a bit shy sometimes. The real surprise, though, was a pod of long-finned pilot whales – this highly social toothed whale species is a very rare sight in our bay, so naturally our crew and passengers were very excited! By the time we headed back to the harbour, everyone on board the Andrea were delighted by our adventure together.

Tour Status: ON

Sightings: YES – Minke whales, harbour porpoises and pilot whales.

17:00

For this last tour we sailed once again to see some whales in the bay next to Reykjavik. The sea was calm and the visibility was really clear, we were able to see all the surroundings to the east and to the north of the capital. We searched for birds in the hope to find some feeding whales with them however it seemed that the bay had gone to sleep as no bird was flying around and no whale was found despite the effort. Passengers were therefore invited to come again for free on another tour.

– Giulia Bellon

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: NO – Passengers invited to join another whale watching for free.

WHALE WATCHING EXPRESS

10:00

It was a minke whale morning today ! We sailed in overcast weather but quite good sea conditions. After around 30 min sailing we found other whale watching boats in the common area where we see our feeding cetaceans. And all in all at least 3-4 different minke whales were seen throughout the tour. One smaller than the others. They were very easy to watch and appeared within 40-300 meters in different directions busy herding schools of fish, while loads of sea birds were taking the leftovers at the surface 🙂 Not good to be a sand eel or sand lance this morning. Black-legged kittiwakes, lesser black-backed gulls, Atlantic puffins, Manx shearwaters, Arctic skuas, Northern gannets and Northern fulmars were seen feeding too.

-Bastien Gueit

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whale.

14:00

More difficult tour this afternoon in better conditions, but we manage to see three minke whales close to the boat. Two of them were young ones maybe 6-8 months old. And one appeared a bit further and much bigger. The young ones have been seen several times really close towards the front of the boats, 20-30 meters and surfaced several times but then they all disappeared. The encounter didn’t last for long but everyone got a good look at them and even the white patches or stripe on the pectoral fins. We went back home facing the wind but the bay looked nice this afternoon.

– Bastien Gueit

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whale.

RIB EXPRESS

09:00

It looked like a lovely day as we began our adventure into Faxaflói. The wind was not too bad and it wasn’t raining too much to ruin our fun, so everyone was excited to find some whales. We found a large group of birds and stuck around them, hoping to see something pop up. We caught glimpses of a minke whale before travelling further into the bay. There, we found an amazing pod of white-beaked dolphins. The dolphins were chasing us and they were very energetic. We found one or two more pods of white-beaked dolphins before running out of time and then we made our way back to the Old Harbour.

-Emil Sölvi Ágústsson

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Brief minke whale and white-beaked dolphins.

11:00

The sea was even smoother than this morning and we sped towards the feeding grounds with great haste. The most amount of activity we found in the bay was by birds, and we decided to stay close to them, just in case something bigger would pop up from the depths. We saw a number of minke whales surfacing here and there, with one of them even coming up right next to our boat. It was so close to us that we could actually smell it! Overall, it was a lovely tour and I was very satisfied with the sightings.

-Emil Sölvi Ágústsson

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales.

14:00

We sailed into Faxafloí with 10 passengers. Today the sea was really calm meaning that for a very rare time the passengers did not get completely soaked from the ride and it was not as bumpy as it is sometimes. As we reached the feeding grounds we saw three individuals in the distance and therefore went in that direction. Being  a group of cetaceans we assumed they were white-beaked dolphins, as they are one of the 4 species that we commonly encounter in the bay. However, as we approached them we realised that they were way too big to be dolphins, and when they went for a dive we were certain it was a different species! What we had in front of us was a pod of long-finned pilot whales!!! What a sight! They are a species that is rarely encountered in this bay!!!
Once they went for a dive we decided to move forward. We soon found a flock of birds and together with them there were two minke whales feeding. One of them was definitely a young juvenile, being only 3 or 4 meters long with a tiny dorsal fin whilst the other was a fully grown adult. Sometimes mothers and calves are seen together but this time we believe it was just two minke whales that happened to be in the same spot, enjoying a feast of sand eels, one of their favourite food.

– Giulia Bellon

Tour Status: ON
Sightings: YES – Minke whales and pilot whales.