Whale diary

We found a minke whale that did not want our passenger to leave without a sighting. The baleen whale surfaced three times and disappeared. It is very challenging to spot the minkes in this type of sea condition. Our passengers really enjoyed the experience of a heavy sea but we still gave them complimentary tickets, the sighting of the minke being extremely short.

This one was tough. Apparently no whales nearby in about 2 hours of sailing but thanks to our colleagues at sea finally we managed to find at least 2 humpback whales. Even one of them was breaching, lob tailing and even checking us out on our starboard side close to the bridge. Lovely end of the tour. As we had used up most of our time we had to rush back into town. 

We found a pod of 4-6 white-beaked dolphins, but they were not very interested in us and pretty quickly moved away. We drove a bit around the bay and then had the word of some more dolphins from our sister boat, Þruma IV. These dolphins were more playful, coming a bit closer to the boat to check us out. We then moved to a humpback whale that was close by, but it was very sleepy and relaxed.

Wherever I was looking i was seeing a whale. In total I counted 4 humpbacks, 3-4 minke whales and 2 pods of white beaked dolphins. We first stayed with a humpback for a while, the animal was showing nice fluke dives under the "aww's" of the passengers.

We could stay a while with one of the first that we found but we wanted to see something further away and we found a humpback whale. It was an individual that we have seen many times this summer with a big notch on the left side of the fluke.

Then a minke whale crossed our path, an awesome minke that blew bubbles whilst feeding just 20m from our bow but it wasn’t until later in the tour when we saw a humpback whale flipper slapping and breaching in the distance. The minke whale (a different individual the before) didn’t like loosing the attention so it too started breaching. AMAZING!!

This didn’t affect the wildlife though as the bay was just full of life. We saw at least 4 different humpback whales, one that stole the show breaching, flipper slapping and rolling many times it was just wonderful to watch. Everyone onboard was loving the show.

Many cetaceans were in the bay today and it did not take long for our first encounter with one of three humpback whales. The first whale we saw was easily visible from a long distance due to the tall blow which hung in the still air.

We saw a large flock of feeding birds ahead and decided to check out that area, and soon enough, a humpback whale showed itself. It was quite active, slapping its tail against the surface of the ocean and swimming around rather quickly, but never really leaving the sight of our boat, always stayed very close by.

About 3 miles further up north, we found another pod of about 5 harbour porpoises, behaving in a similar way to the other ones. At the same time, we spotted a blow from a humpback whale, that we approached and observed for about half an hour.

After a brief sighting of a minke whale we encounter a pod of about 12 white beaked dolphins scattered around the boat. They were a bit reluctant at first to get closer to our vessel but after a while they found courage to even come with their calves. Lovely encounter. 

A humpback whale showing us its fluke a few times made clear to us it was also very relaxed and up to its own thing which I suspect basically was some bottom feeding. People got a great view on this one.

After observing the puffins in an island near Reykjavik we first found a humpback whale pretty close to the harbour that was very sleepy, not moving that much. We could stay a while with it observing how it was surfacing.

We found a minke whale and a humpback whale quite close to the harbour. If the we quickly lost the minke, we could stay with the humpback during a long time with many fluke dives. The animal was probably feeding. We went further out and found a third specie, a pod of white beaked dolphins.

We heard that a boat spotted a humpback so we headed there. In the way we saw a minke whale surfacing three times on our right. We arrived to the humpback whale that fluke dived maybe 2 times but then took a nap.

On our journey, large splashes were visible through the fog and it soon became clear that a humpback whale lobtailing was responsible. The whale was lifting its large fluke and slapping it to the ocean surface repeatedly and all of a sudden, had vanished.

We went out on the bay looking for the whales, we saw a minke from far away quite close to Hvalfjörður, the whale fjord, but we decided to first head further away to see if we could find a bigger whale. We did not so we headed back to the fjord and we found a humpback whale.

We decided to keep going and let this animal that showed us a few fluke dives. We found another humpback whale further away with a very strong a long blow. The animal dived and went closer to Reykjavik.

The wind from the north was quite cold but not very strong. We found a nice area with many birds so we slowed down. It was a good decision, a minke whale appeared, and a second one a few minutes later. We could see the minke whales surfacing a few times, probably feeding.

We had a very nice stop to see the puffins in the beginning. Then the captain manouvered to bring us in some good areas and after a long search we could find a humpback whale. We saw the blow of the animal many times but due to the sea it was complicated to approach it.