First Atlantic spotted dolphins of the year!

We started our morning adventure with a bit of unpredictable weather. Even so, we set off with the same enthusiasm as every day and as we got further away from the harbour the weather started to improve and the visibility got better and better.

The first sighting took a little while. We had to go around the southeast coast of the island until we found a group of one of our year-round species, our sperm whale. And it wasn’t just one individual! There were four females together! These individuals stayed on the surface to breathe for some time while socialising with each other. At one point we could see how the animal was belly up thanks to the turquoise colour in the water. Unfortunately, when they dived they did so mid-water without showing us their tails.

Once the sperm whales had dived, we went in search of another species without knowing what we were going to find. From a distance, we saw that we had dolphins in front of us but we did not know what species was until we got closer. What a surprise when we got closer! For the first time this year, we had a large group of Atlantic spotted dolphins swimming around our boat! This kind of dolphins appears here when our waters start to get warmer, where they reproduce. In fact, there were many calves and some newborns that did not yet have the characteristic spots of this species as these are acquired over time.

We were a long way out of the harbour and started our return trip. On our way back we met our third species, a large group of common dolphins. Our boat was surrounded by adults, juveniles and calves of dolphins where some were swimming in our bow taking advantage of the waves generated by our catamaran to be transported and others were feeding in association with one of the most characteristic birds of the island of Sao Miguel, the Cory’s shearwater. The presence of birds and cetaceans in the same place is a clear indication that there is food in the area.