Whale Diary

10:00 - Following the last few days sunshine, todays weather was no exception - clear skies, flat seas, and great visibility. We ventured out in the bay, and after watching the puffins on Engey island, we soon encountered a pod of 8 white beaked dolphins. The group was travelling fast and diving for a few minutes at a time, but we were lucky to have them surface just next to us several times, giving us a great chance to spot their beautiful grey and white coloration. Soon, we discovered that there were some more dolphins spread out in the area, adding to our count 15 individuals in total. We let the dolphins continue their travels, and soon also discovered two sleeping humpback whales! We were able to watch their peaceful rest, often turning off our motors completely. They surfaced just next to us with quite short intervals, and we were all able to marvel at their grand size and beauty, even getting glimpses of their white pectoral fins under the sea surface. With this wonderful encounter and plenty of good pictures and videos, it was sadly time to head back to the harbor, but lucky for us the sun was still out and we could sunbathe all the way back.

Crew: Captain Gunni & Guide Maja, Captain Pedro & Guide Maria

12:00 - The conditions were perfect for a whale-watching tour today: sunshine, calm winds, and lots of whale activity! Our tour started with a sighting of a minke whale. It came up frequently, and it was beautiful to see the sun glitter on its smooth skin. Next up were two humpback whales. These individuals were immediately interested in our boat and one of them even swam underneath us. We looked all around, wondering where it would come up next but we would never have been able to guess the answer. Out of nowhere, the humpback jumped with its full body out of the water, mere meters away from our bow! We felt the splashes on our faces, heard the enormous impact of this animal on the water, and were generally struck with awe at what had just happened! We didn´t have long to recover though, as the other humpback whale decided to give its own show by breaching 5 times in a row. After all of that, the whales were probably a bit tired and started resting at the surface separately from each other. Eventually they found each other again and calmly swam side by side. It was hard to leave, but there were still some puffins waiting for us at Akurey so we departed towards harbour with these unforgettable encounters in mind. 

Crew: Captain Miquel & Guide Eline

14:00 - We ventured out again in the afternoon, all excited to escape the warmth of the city for a little and see what nature had in store. After a brief stop by Akurey island to watch the charming Atlantic puffins, we continued sailing for about 20 minutes before suddenly we saw two large blows ahead. Excitingly, it turned out to be two humpback whales, one of them being our beloved Davy Jones the 2:nd. We were able to watch this beautiful duo for quite some time, doing some shallow dives under the surface, and suddenly - a big splash appeared in front of us. The humpback whale did a peduncle throw just next to us - what a powerful thing to witness! Following, the two whales continued performing synchronized dives and we could stay and marvel for a little bit longer before it was time to head back to the city again. What a wonderful experience this was!

Crew: Captain Gunni & Guide Maja

16:00 - The sun was still shining this late afternoon, and we sailed out with hopes of some more nice sightings. Our first encounter was with some elusive harbour porpoises. They only came up once or twice, so we were unable to fully enjoy these cute cetaceans (but no worries - that all changed later when we found another pod that came up to the surface frequently, and even started swimming around our boat). In between the porpoise sightings, we were surrounded by humpback whales. There were four in total: first two separate individuals who swam in random directions, and later two individuals that were swimming side by side. One of the individuals was the well-known whale Davy Jones II - the others, we recognised but remain unnamed as they are relatively new additions to Faxafloi. Time flew by, and after some very close encounters with the whales and lots of puffins, we sailed back into Reykjavik harbour. 

Crew: Captain Miquel & Guide Eline

20:00 - On our evening tour, we started heading to Akurey to see some puffins! They were all over the water, resting on the surface after a long day. We then started our journey on finding some cetaceans! We travelled quite far, but we spotted a blow quite close to us. It was a humpback whale, that was quite speedy and moving away. All of a sudden, this one breached 3 times in a row, followed by a wave with its pectoral fin. We also started seeing many other blows in the distance. These blows turned to become breaches too! About 3 humpbacks were breaching in different times, it's like they were talking to each other! So we went to investigate a few of them. We got one lonely humpback, then we went to check a pair of humpies feeding with the birds. However, they vanished and we decided as a group to check another group of 4 humpbacks feeding with 2 big flocks of birds! The birds were going crazy and they were exposing the location of the whales when they would come up to the surface! What a huge feast everyone was having. The whales were also very close so we could hear the loud blow of every single one and could see the pectoral fin of some of them when they were rolling. In total, we believe we saw about 7-8 humpback whales in total in this tour and we went back to the harbour with the happiest faces!

Crew: Captain Emily & Guide Milla