Whale Diary

10:00 - We left the harbor under an overcast sky with almost no wind. A perfect day to go out as the grey of the flat water made it easy to spot anything on the surface. We just passed by the lighthouse on Grótta as we saw little dorsal fins at the surface. We approached very slowly and were able to get close to a group of around 8 harbour porpoises. Normally quite shy, these group got really close to us and the smallest individual even rested for a few minutes at the surface. What a rare sight! Just as we decided to go on, a humpback whale surfaced not far from us and immediately went down with a fluke dive. Of course we tried to get closer, but the whale did not seem to be in the right mood today. we waited for him for about 15 minutes until we saw him back at the surface several hundred meters away and fluke diving again. So we let him do his things and went further out. A good decision as it turned out. There were countless white-beaked dolphins all over the area. It must have been over 100 of them. They were spread out far searching for food in small pods of 2-10 individuals. Some got interested in our boat and got very close as the swam along until we had to head home to Reykjavik. A great tour out on the bay!  

Crew: Captain Miquel & Guide Knut

14:00 - Conditions were similar to the first tour. It was a bit brighter as the clouds thinned a little. Just outside of the harbor we were greeted by hundreds of Northern gannets plunge diving for fish. They were not the only predators out for a meal as we spotted a fast minke whale feeding right between the diving birds. We stayed some time and got great images of the gannets darting into the water until we continued to visit the puffins on Engey. As we went out onto the bay we found a pod of around 10 fast traveling harbour porpoises that disappeared quickly in the distance. As they clearly wanted to be somewhere else, we continued our search and were rewarded with 2 humpback whales. These giants were traveling slowly but diving quite long. So we stayed in their area for the last minutes until we had to head back. It was worth waiting as we got to see a nice fluke dive to wave us goodbye.

Crew: Captain Miquel & Guide Knut