For the 6th time the cruise ship of Iceland ProCruises reached Flatey today in the early morning. Almost 100 passengers entered the island at around 9am to spend the morning on that beautiful island. The passengers of the cruise ship were invited for a walk around the island with stops at the church, the lighthouse and the community house.
"I had a great Big Whale Safari with your company" wrote Joachim Bertrands, who went out on a Big Whale Safari RIB tour on July 16th. He came hoping to see a blue whale, and he was lucky enough to see exactly that! Joachim shared with us this lovely picture collage of the blue whale that he saw on the tour, writing "I'm very happy with it as it is a new species for me".
Today has been a very busy but also successful day. Close to Lundey - the Puffin Island - a group of dolphins paid several of our RIBs a visit. At the same time, a humpback was lunge feeding close to the beach and cliffs on the southern end of the bay.
After some stormy northerly winds didn’t allow us to sail yesterday, the sea calmed down over night. Hence, we could again depart as usual this morning. The day before yesterday, the blue-fin hybrid visited our bay another time.
Today we look back on another exciting day out at sea. A few humpbacks showed off from their best side throughout the day and allowed our guests aboard to get some amazing views onto them. All of them were relaxing or feeding in an area close to the mountains.
It's not always only about the big whales here in the bay. In addition to humpback whales and minke whales, in recent days the many white-beaked dolphins have been dazzling our passengers. The white-beaked dolphins live in the cold North Atlantic waters all year round, and they have been frequent visitors to the bay this week.
Last year in June Koen Hoekemeijer visited us and the gentle giants of Skjálfandibay for the first time. As a multitrip passenger he joined 15 tours within 4,5 days. Before leaving he wrote a message saying: “Guys, this has probably been the best week of my life!” The other week he was standing in front of the Ticket Center again, ready to join as many tours as possible within his few days visit.
A playful humpback was impressing and entertaining many visitors yesterday in the early afternoon. Besides lobtailing and flipper slapping, it also breached out of the water and amazed both, passengers and crew.
Recently, the Icelandic Environment Association awarded Gentle Giants the "Blue Flag for Whale Watching Boats" for 2015 for agreeing to an environmental code of conduct that protects the bay and all the wonderful wildlife that calls it home for some or all of the year.
Nature is unpredictable and so are the whales. We never know what is awaiting us out in the bay when leaving the harbour. We don’t know how whales behave and what they are going to do. But yesterday something incredible happened: On our evening “GG2 Big Whale Safari” we first got see a blue whale, which in the beginning was rather difficult to observe, but then out of the sudden got close to our boat.
