Whale Diary

10:00 - We set out for quite a chill tour this morning, as the sea was flat as glass, visibility was amazing and the boat was filled with kind and excited passengers. We started by visiting one of the puffin colonies on Engey Island, where we got the change to have a look at this clumsy, but funny birds. Soon, we set off back to the ocean to search for whales. We were very delighted to find an incredibly social humpback whale, which interacted with our boat, inclusively taking its head out of the water and looking at us, eye-to-eye. After this amazing encounter (and a few more puffins), we had various sightings of harbour porpoises. These shy animals almost never stop by us for enough time for our passengers to actually see them. However, in this tour we were lucky enough that they actually surfaced various times close to us, providing our guest the opportunity to see them and photographing them various times. We then returned to Reykjavík, surprised with such a lucky tour this morning.

Crew: Captain Gunni & Guide Ricardo

12:00 - We headed into the bay with fair winds and a beautiful sunshine. First stop was a puffin stop, we observed some of those cute birds right by the boat. Then we continued our journey into the bay and found a humpback whale. The whale was very close to shore , in 30 meter waters, and was moving slowly. We could observe it for a while, at some point we even saw it sleeping on the surface of the water, and also doing some sort of roll. It was very nice to get to see it so well and close. Following a good amount of time with the whale, we ventured further into the bay and a passenger spotted 2 white beaked dolphins. The dolphins appeared twice, one of the times passing under the boat, and then disappeared. It was a fast encountered, but very cool to add a species to the tour encounters. It was then time to head home, what a nice trip. 

Crew: Captain Kylie & Guide Melanie

14:00 - The seas were still nice and calm and a gentle breeze blew our way this afternoon After a quick stop at the puffins it didn´t take us too long to find our first humpback whale! Even though this individual was a bit shy and surfaced quite irregularly, we did manage to stick with it for a good time. We then moved on to a second humpback whale, which was a lot less shy so we got some nice good looks and a even a few pretty flukedives! To top it all of, we then found a pod of around 10 white beaked dolphins. They were coming very close to the boat and travelling at a very fast speed so we got to see their silhouettes shoot through the surface of the water right in front of us!  What a good ending of the day!

Crew: Captain Gunni & Guide Ricardo, Captain Miquel & Guide Milan

16:00 - We headed into the bay to try to find some cetaceans. The wind was still quite light, and we still had a nice sunshine that avoided us to be too cold. After 30 minutes only we saw a humpback whale. This animal was traveling quite fast but we still could observe it for a long time going up and down for a few breathing sequences. After a long time seeing the animal surfacing as it was traveling we continued our trip toward other areas of the bay were animals were spotted earlier today. We took a ride, observing for blows but nothing. After some time we headed back toward the harbour making a nice puffin stop at Lundey on the way home. Overall a very pleasant trip under the sun. 

Crew: Captain Kylie & Guide Melanie

20:00 - We had an fantastic show from our cetaceans this evening. We started with spotting the blow of one humpback whale that was on the move. It even treated us to not one, but two breaches! We saw an amazing fluke and then spotted the blow from another individual humpback whale and decided to check them out! When we arrived they were trumpeting and shortly after arriving we realized why. A pod of six white-beaked dolphins were having fun messing with our humpback whale! The boat was surrounded with dolphins as they decided to check us out, and then we were in for quite the treat. Our humpback was joined by our original humpback and both of them were being bothered by the dolphins! We were even treated to a third breach! The humpbacks then started to lunge feed! They also swished their tails to get the dolphins to leave them alone! We seemed to hit the jackpot with the humpbacks being provoked by the dolphins and all cetaceans kept coming to the surface either feeding or jumping. We even spotted another blow of a whale in the distance but decided we were happy staying right where we were. With dolphins and whales keeping us busy we had an extremely successful evening. We unfortunately had to wave goodbye to our cetaceans and head back to port. On the way back we spotted another pod of three white-beaked dolphins! A feeding frenzy this evening!

Crew: Captain Pedro & Guide Samantha