Whales breaching and dolphins jumping in Pico Island

In the last few days, we’ve been having amazing
sightings outside of Pico’s South coast. Sperm whales have
been wandering through the waters near the coast, from the west to the east
they’ve been diving deep to forage in the big deep blue. Along with their
calves and juveniles by their side, we’ve been observing these giants of the
ocean. Two days ago, we were lucky to be with them as they were taking a break
from all the foraging, to stay socializing together at the surface. We got to
identify several adult females together with their progeny, staying quite close
to each other, rolling on their belly and jumping high! The jumping whale was
projecting all its body outside of the surface several times before the group’s
‘getting together’.

In our latest trips, our most sighted species have
been the Risso’s
dolphins. They were calm like the Ocean, socializing a lot
with each other while we were enjoying seeing them together, swimming close,
rolling their body near the surface.

The spoted
dolphins have been bringing us a lot of happiness in almost
each of our trips. Their numerous groups swim energetically around our boat,
with lots of whistling and clicking, surrounding us.

We’ve been sighting these
numerous groups with lots of juveniles and new-borns. Spotted dolphins are
quite similar to the striped
dolphins, belonging to the same genus. However, the striped
dolphins show us their ‘flights’ year-long, the spotted dolphins only visit us
while our waters are warm enough for them.

Finally, the beautiful short-finned pilot whales are also around. Amazing us with their size and calm
behaviour, these enormous dolphins form stable life-long groups, known to
follow a matrilineal organization with just a few males present in each pod.