Species seen today: Humpback whale, Minke whale, White-beaked dolphins and Harbour porpoises.

Birds seen today: Atlantic puffin, black guillemot, common guillemot, razorbill, great black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, great cormorant, greylag geese, common eider duck, Arctic tern, Arctic skua

10:00 - The sea was really good as we started our sail out. The puffins around Engey always offer us a nice look before we sail out in the open ocean to look for cetaceans. Today the sea did not disappoint, we went toward an area where we saw a lot of sea birds and all of sudden a few humpback whales appeared around us. We counted about 4 to 6 in this area. One of these humpback whales was our beloved Neila which offered us a nice good look at its massive body and fluke as it went down for deeper dive. 2 humpbacks were calmly traveling in pair and also offered us some really nice looks on some feeding behavior. In the same area we had the luck of seeing 1 to 3 minke whales passing really fast on the horizon. Overall a really cool tour with a lot of wildlife around. 

Crew - Þruma II Daniel & Rodrigo, Þruma IV Megan & Melanie

12:00 - We had a grey sky but the sea looked very calm with tiny white caps made by the breeze. After a quick check on Akurey's puffins, we set sail to the middle of Faxaflói. It wasn't long until we found our first sighting! It was a pair of humpback whales feeding together in the middle of a huge flock of birds composed of puffins, kittiwakes and northern fulmars. All of a sudden another blow showed up not too far from us and after a pair of fluke dives, we went there! It was another humpback whale but it did a fluke dive very quickly. We waited a bit and a minke whale popped up 10 meters from us and vanished the next second. Behind it came 3 harbour porpoises just picking up the scraps from both whales. We waited some 20 minutes and we decided to check another blow in the distance, another humpback but this time it stayed on the surface longer. A couple of small dives later and we had our day over. A great day out there in the bay! 

Crew: Þruma I Gunni & Pedro

14:00 - The sea conditions were great, just slightly choppier than the morning when we started our sail out. Engey gave us a great look on a few puffins and off we went to look for cetaceans hoping we will get the same luck as the previous tours. After some time we saw a pod of 4 to 6 harbour porpoises. These cetaceans are quite elusive so we barely see their fin coming up a few times before they disappeared. After some time we finally spotted a humpback whale, we saw it coming up only one time and raising its tail for a deeper dive. This individual decided to leave the area since we never saw it after that. We got to observe quickly 1 or 2 minke whales back before the end of our trip. Because of the elusive nature of the cetaceans we decided to offer some complimentary tickets for the passengers to hopefully get a better look in the Elding classic whale watching boat.    

Crew: Þruma II Daniel & Melanie

16:00 - The grey weather didn't deceive us from going out, the calm seas inspired us to think about good sightings! And so we went, but first a stop at Engey to check on our lovely puffins. After that, we set out to look for something bigger than a tiny bird. Some 15 minutes passed and we had some fog covering our horizons but right next to us, a small pod of harbour porpoises appeared! After that a smelly smell was in the air and a minke whale popped up right in front of the boat to never be seen again! Great, there was life and we continued our search. We had our eyes on the line that separates the sea from the sky when a pod of 7 to 9 white-beaked dolphins jumped really high and made a lot of splashes. Right when we got there a big blow was seen, it was a humpback whale that proceeded to give a fluke dive! But there was more than one around us, not too far another 2 came up at the same time just to be joined by another one in the back. And then we lost count of them! Just like the white-beaked dolphins that were jumping everywhere, we looked even underwater! What a great tour it was!!!

Crew: Þruma II Daniel & Pedro 

20:00 - We started our way with an Engey stop to observe cute little puffins floating on the water and on the cliffs. Then it was time to head out to the open sea to look for cetaceans. We first stopped around an area where we observed 2 to 3 minke whales feeding around some sea birds. After some time we headed toward another area where we were lucky enough to observe not 1, but 6 to 10 humpback whales in the distance and feeding. In the same area we also had at least a pod, to more, of white beaked dolphins as we could see at least 30 to 50 jumping around in the area. In addition to this already amazing sighting were 3 to 6 minke whales also feeding in this area. This sighting was absolutely incredible, we just stopped in this area, mostly with the engine switched off observing all these cetaceans having a feast all around us, we could hear all of the blows, all of the leaps of the dolphins, all of the splashes around and smell all of the smells of these animals. We got to see some lunge feeding of humpback whales also really close. We also noticed a humpback whale in the area that had an emaciated body and a brownish looking body (some whale lice on its skin). As sad as it was to see this sick whale, it also reminds us that death is also part of the whales life and when they die they will mostly sink and create some habitat in the abyss and hep with carbon storage in the bottom of the ocean. Anyways, on the way back we got to see around 5 harbour porpoises, this tour was absolutely incredible, still cannot believe we got that lucky.

Crew: Þruma II Daniel & Rodrigo, Þruma I Megan & Melanie

 

Happy Independence Day! 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 on info@whalesafari.is!