Amazing encounters with 6 species in one day!

The sun rised with plenty of joy, providing us warm weather which forecast the arriving of summer, joining us on what ended up being an incredible journey.

Just having done the first kilometers of the trip, pretty close to shore yet, a group of bottlenose dolphins approached curious to the boat, welcoming us in the entrance of their blue realm. Between them we manage to sight an already identified individual, Mr Grey! This animal have its upper jaw deformated in a quite characteristic way.

Having enjoyed for a while of their always pleasant company, we decided to go further far away looking for some bigger companion.

Suddenly, in the middle of the blue, appeared in front of us an elegant humpback whale! Such a breath-taking sighting! We accompanied the animal during part of its trip while taking photos of its tail for further photo-identification on land. We said goodbye to this beautiful animal as we carried on our journey.

The next inhabitant to sight were spotted dolphins, who look like the tinny starry sky, bowriding with us for a while. It was a pod composed by many calves, as the end of spring is the reproduction season of these animals. They arrive to the Azores from tropical African waters during their migration routes.

After leaving the area, our crew spotted the last but not least species of today’s morning trip, the striped dolphin, mainly identified by its dark lateral stripe and light spinal blaze. The spotted dolphin and the stripped dolphin are much smaller than the bottlenose dolphin, which is one of the traits used to distinguish them in the wild. The stripped dolphin is quite faster than the other dolphins seen in the area, making difficult to have a proper view close to the boat. Nevertheless, it is always possible to see their acrobatic jumps in the distance, and we can tell they are amazing!

In this sunny afternoon we left the harbour to encounter once again the group of bottlenose dolphins sighted in the morning. The group was big and several individuals looked like they were performing mating behaviours. Not only we were able to see individuals rubbing their bellys on each other but also several of them were jumping and doing some really nice underwater acrobatics. This is the perfect time for bottlenose dolphins to mate as they have a gestation period of around 12 months meaning that females will give birth next summer which increases the survival rate of their babies.

Like in the morning Mr. Gray was also present. A new sighting was not far away and we decided to say goodbye to these dolphins and go and find out what it was. But our friendly dolphins did not left us before performing some amazing jumps. What a goodbye! It was not long until we reach the area of our new species.

New to the day but very well known to us. Sperm Whales! We arrived to a female resting on the surface. And after being able to enjoy its presence she decided that it was time to go foraging again and therefore get some food. 2 others were seen resting and diving.