22 July 2022

Species seen today: Humpback whale, Minke whale, White-beaked dolphin, Harbour porpoise

Today we went out on two of our rib boats. We left rainy Reykjavik and headed to the ocean, where we were blessed with incredibly beautiful conditions: flat sea, great visibility, no rain, no wind, calm and quiet, even the sun was coming out of the clouds. First cetacean we spotted was a big humpback whale. It was sleeping, so we spent short time with it and left it to rest. Soon, not far from the harbour, we started spotting numerous birds feeding, scattered and in the flocks, with plenty of minke whales scattered around also in the feeding action. We started realizing we are definatelly at the right time at the right place! We put our engines in neutral, next to one of the big flocks of birds, enjoying the natural show of 4 minke whales and a humpback lunge feeding all around us! We were smelling their fishy breath, hearing them breathing, seeing them chasing fish, coming out with their whole heads and open mouths above the surface!  We also saw, what appeared like a "tomato soup" - plenty of zooplankton and small sized fishes (whales' prey) feeding on it. The top of the tour was probably the moment when the humpback opened its mouth wide open and just let the fishes jump into it, like in a slow motion movie :)

On our later tours we visited the same area, in hope we'll see similar feeding action. On both later tours we saw at least 10 minke and humpback whales. Few of the minkes were still actively feeding, and others were moving very slowly, just under the surface, resting in what seemed as their "after meal siesta". We recognized two of the humpbacks: Neila and Maripol. We also found a big pod of around 20-25 a bit scattered white-beaked dolphins. On one tour they were elusive, avoiding us, so we left them go their way. On the following tour we saw them playing with one of the humpback whales.
The visibility was so incredible and sea so flat we plemty of animals at distance too. There were also 2-4 harbour porpoises passed us by.