azwhales
Less than a week away from Spring we can already feel its influence: beautiful clear skies and sunny days. After some yearly maintenance, the catamaran « Quatro Ventos » (Four Winds) is back to the sea again. We left Ponta Delgada along with one of our zodiacs and headed West.
We first found a big and active group of bottlenose dolphins, bowriding, jumping, and delighting us with their fast swimming.
We kept navigating and found a solitary common dolphin. We stayed with it for a while but we couldn’t see wether it was part of a bigger group or not. Definitely, it is not a common situation in this species.
We left the area following the indications of the crew from the zodiac, they heard something farther West using the hydrophone! Indeed, our staff heard echolocation sounds, that sperm whales make when they search for food for example.
Our vigia confirmed the presence of sperm whales and we were able to find them quite fast: two animals close to the boat and one further out. They stayed with us for a while and even went for a deep dive showing their fluke. None of the individuals was registered before, it seems that we have new additions to our catalogue!
We returned to Ponta Delgada with the sun shining and a smile on our faces.
azwhales
Futurismo Biologists Team
Sandrina Rodrigues
