First whale and dolphin watching trip of 2021!

What a pleasure to be back on the water again. It felt like a summer day, people catching the sunrays everywhere and Futurismo and French bloggers took their dose of it on the open Atlantic ocean.

The first tour of 2021 turned out to be quite special in many ways. After some reports by Futurismo over the last weeks of dead animals this topic went on as our first stop was by a recently deceased young common dolphin with a missing lower jaw and tongue, a delicacy for orcas but we can’t tell what actually happened in this case. Immediately we started to look around for some predators but there were none in sight but some live common dolphins. So we left the one behind which will turn into an important source of nutrients for a big community as nature goes its way.

We enjoyed a lot of wildlife alive from  the Cory’s shearwaters which came back again numerously and mixed with the yellow legged seagulls. We passed several flocks of the winter guests the black-headed gulls and in the distance the bird watchers eye was also capable to catch a glimpse of Bulwer’s petrel and common tern. During the trip a great skua came along to greet us as well.

But now back to the dolphins. We observed first the common dolphins which joined our boat for a while and later we spotted more subgroups of this species as well as of bottlenose dolphins too. It’s always perfect to see all the characteristics of these species as also the individual features which allow us to tell them apart. We consider ourselves very lucky to revel in their beauty and enjoy their presence when they decide to inspect us as well.

Our expedition went on with a close up look at the floating colonies of portuguese man-of-war and once the eyes of everyone one on board was trained to see it we managed to detect plenty of them spread over the ocean surface.

An other stop over we made by some local fishermen which were just about landing their catch of the day after 2 1/2h work of bringing a bluefin tuna of nearly 200 kg up in their boat, which they proudly presented us as they are allowed to take a small number with their sustainable long line fishing technique.

When we arrived to the deep waters with the whole length of São Miguel Island on one side and the silhouette of Santa Maria to the other we listened several times to the sound spectrum of the under water world. Sometimes some dolphin whistles could be heard between the swell. Far in the distance a really high full body leap appeared at the horizon so we scanned the area too.

After several hours of relishing on the water it was time to tend to our hunger and the start of an successful whale watching season was made. On Monday we plan to go again so if you  like to take your chance join us!

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