Our lucky passengers and crew on yesterday's departure at 10:45 got to enjoy sunshine, white-beaked dolphins and humpback whales. What more can you ask for? The following video, of another beautiful humpback encounter, was recorded by our passenger Vivianne Kempers in 2017. Thanks again for sharing, @viviannekempers You can also tag, mention and/or check in at Gentle Giants Whale Watching to share your memories.
What brings the staff of Gentle Giants together is our passion for whales and their surrounding nature. Life as a whale watching guide is forever fascinating as every new departure is a unique adventure, which our guide Miro's story from yesterday's tour proves: Wild nature of Skjálfandi Bay, some tours are better than others and some can not get any better! And exactly one tour like mentioned last we experienced yesterday.
Since our season started, less than a week ago, we have encountered many interesting whale species in Skjálfandi Bay. Harbour porpoises, white-beaked dolphins, orcas, fin whales and a blue whale were on the list – and this morning we gladly added to it the beloved humpback whales as well.
Seeing a blue whale is literally a big thing and our passengers today were lucky enough to encounter the first one of our season. Blue whales are the biggest animals on Earth and can reach up to 33 metres and 190 tonnes.
That every tour is a new adventure is not just something we say. Today's two first tours of the season clearly prove this. A pod of white-beaked dolphins and several harbour porpoises were encountered on the very first trip at 10:45. During the afternoon’s extra departure at 14:15 the conditions had changed already and a pod of eleven orcas and three fin whales were seen instead.
The very first tour of the year, scheduled at 10:45 on Thursday, is almost fully booked already. To meet the demand we have opened up an extra departure at 14:15. This is so much fun, especially as we have never started the season this early before.
Today it is exactly 100 days left until Iceland's first ever World Cup match on 16 June. The celebration is kicked off with a special message delivered by our President and the First Lady (watch the embedded video).
"... We even had a whale come right up next to and under our boat. An exciting experience to see the humpbacks and how sweet they are, the crew showed us a great time!" This is a quote from an Instagram post by our passenger Chris Giordano, who documented his 10-day self drive around Iceland last September and dedicated Day 6 to our GG2 Big Whale Safari.
Two weeks only. The countdown continues. Our whale watching tours will start earlier than ever before this year – on 15th March – and we are getting the final things together to make this the best season ever.
Have you met Charla, the Canadian PhD. humpback whale researcher who is also a whale watching guide and ticket sales staff by us at Gentle Giants? At the age of seven she drew a picture of herself with an orca and expressed her future dream of working with whales for the first time.
