Species seen today: Humpback whale, Minke whale, white-beaked dolphin, harbour porpoise

Birds seen today: Great cormorant, purple sandpiper, arctic tern, arctic skua, northern gannet, black guillemot, common guillemot, Atlantic puffin, northern fulmar, great and lesser black back gull, herring gull, eider duck and ducklings!

10:00 - We start our very Icelandic day, our first whale-watching tour of the day! After a quick check on the puffins on Akurey we started going out to the middle of the bay. We had a bit of swell so the sightings were going to be a bit harder. After seeing lots of birds flying around, we had a tip about something in the area and so, we started looking everywhere! There it was, a small pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins. They were a bit shy to us but then not so far from us, a humpback whale blowing away and also being elusive. We stayed for a bit and it was time to go. Some nice sightings this morning!

Crew: Captain Daniel & Guide Rodrigo, Captain Gunni & Guide Pedro.

12:00 - The waves were still quite high but long enough for us to sail in the bay. We needed a bit of time to get in the good areas but the way back was much more smooth. We headed directly out trying to see if some nice whales would show and looked all the good spots we know in the bay. There was a lot of birds being active so it looked like the sea was full of life. One of our passengers spotted fins so we got closer and found 4-5 white-beaked dolphins that came under the boat. It was super nice to have this interaction with them. There was a calf thaty seemed particularly interested and then the whole group appeared only a couple of meters from us. Those dolphins were disappearing under our boat and reappearing on one side or the other surprising us every time. We had little time left and tried to look around for whales but no blow was visible in the area so we headed back. We stopped at Akurey to look at the thousands of Atlantic puffins that are breeding on the island before heading back to the harbour. We gave complimentary tickets to the passengers to give them another chance to see whales in the future onboard elding vessels.

Crew: Siggi & Miquel

13:00 - It was a beautiful day but still some waves in the bay. Our first stop was at akurey to see some atlantic puffins. After this stop the search for the cetaceans begun. As usual we went to some key points where we have been succesfull in previous tours. The time were passing and some sea birds were in the sky but unfortunately no cetaceans were spotted. After some time searching for the animals unfortunately nothing showed at the surface and we had to return to the harbour. Since we didn't spot any cetaceans we decided to give to all the passengers complimentary tickets to give them a opportunity to rejoin another tour in the classic whale watching.

Crew: Daniel & Rodrigo

20:00 - The sea was beautiful today in those golden hours that we have at this time of the "day" in Iceland. One of our boats went to the north and the other boat to the south to optimise the research. Our plan was simple, but effective. We spotted in total 4 pods of 5-6 white beaked dolphins. The animals were bow riding, swimming along the boat and under, following us clearly curious. There was even a spy-hope made by a friendly individual, the aniæal looking outside of the water to look at us. We also spotted 3 minke whales, a bit difficult to see at first but we finally manage to see the black back and pointy dorsal fin of the baleen whale. We also had the immense luck of smelling there stinky fishy breath! On the way back we also had a glimpse of 2-3 harbour porpoises that immediately disappeared. We stopped by Akurey and admire the thousands of Atlantic puffins breeding there, before heading back to the harbour.  

Crew: Daniel & Pedro, Siggi & Miquel

Today we are running a full schedule of whale and puffin watching tours! 

For more information come see us at Ægisgarður 5D,

call us on +354 497 0000 or email us at info@whalesafari.is