24th April 2024

Species seen today: Orca(!), humpback whale, minke whale, white-beaked dolphin and harbour porpoise

Birds seen today: Atlantic puffin, northern gannet, northern fulmar, kittiwake, common guillemot, black guillemot, great cormorant, shearwater, eider duck, greater black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, razorbill, purple sandpiper, oystercatcher.

09:00 - The day promised cloudy skies but a sea flat like a table ready to be explored by our rib! After checking the flappy puffins on Engey we started our survey of Faxaflói and about 15 minutes into the tour we saw a great surprise!! We saw 2 triangular and tall fins, belonging to 2 orcas!!! A rare sighting on this bay, so we had to be careful not to scare them away. It was one male and one other, possibly female. We decided to follow the tallest fin, and we even saw it from the front coming towards us. The other continued to be about 200 metres away from the male so we took turns in watching them. After a while, we went away and tried to spot more things. Not too far from there 3 minkes were popping up now and then and we even had a close encounter. We continued on and again not too far a pod of 5 white-beaked dolphins was seen coming up and down very slowly. They were very curious and we could even see them swimming under the boat, an incredible moment with these chonky dolphins. After some time another sighting was seen, a humpback whale. It was very shy, only popping once and being gone the next second. So, time was over and we decided to head back to the harbour. 

Crew: Captain Gunni & Guide Pedro

12:00 - The weather continued to be constant, calm and cloudy. After checking puffins on Akurey we decided to head out into the middle of the ocean. But wait, there are a few fins really close by. They belong to white-beaked dolphins! A pod of about 4. They were quite nice and we even took some cool pictures with Reykjavík in the background. We sailed out again and saw a few minke whales too but they were not having it with us. So we decided to explore other areas and then we struck luck once again! The male orca was seen coming up for air! This time it was alone, but still nice, the landscape was grey and the black body made a great contrast to take beautiful photos. We extended our time for quite a bit in order to have a good look at the apex predator and after a while, we came back home.

Crew: Captain Gunni & Guide Pedro

15:00 - The weather was still nice, puffins were still everywhere so we went out in search of some marine action. We sailed far in order to try to find the findings from the previous tours but no luck there. We tried another area and some fins started to pop up. In total, there were 5 minke whales but they all were hard to follow. There were also some harbour porpoises but as we know, they don't want us to know their business. We continued to trail several nautical miles but nothing else came up. Thankfully the puffins were good to us and were present by the thousands.

Crew: Captain Miquel & Guide Pedro

Today we are ON for all tours! Whale Watching is at 09.00, 12.00 & 15.00 & Puffin Watching at 10.00

For more information come see us at Ægisgarður 5D, email us at info@whalesafari.is

or call us on +354 497 0000