Familiar flukes under the sun

Today we went to the sea on a bright sunny and hot day.

Our lookouts alerted us to the presence of a sperm whale. Upon arrival we were able to appreciate its great size, after a few minutes, the animal began its dive showing us its beautiful tail. Thanks to this, we have recognized this sperm whale immediately, it was our friend Tonga! Each sperm whale has a unique tail, like our fingerprint, so that’s how we do the matching between daily photographs and our catalog. Futurismo’s research studies found up to 12 different units of sperm whales visiting frequently the waters off São Miguel. We searched for more animals in the area and after a 45 min dive Tonga reappeared again.

From the full-day trip, they spotted another individual from the blue unit not named yet but catalogued with the number PM 48.

So this morning different boats had different meetings with the Azorean wildlife. Atlantic spotted dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, loggerhead sea turtles and a blue shark made their appearance too.

The good weather continued in the afternoon and helped us find some more marine animals in the surroundings of São Miguel. Just after leaving the port, we found a group of about 30 common dolphins, which made us even luckier by bow riding our boats.

Later, we also met six sperm whales, three of which showed us their tail. In this group of sperm whales, there was also an adult female accompanied by a baby. When they took a dive together we recognised the female as PM 48 the same individual as seen in the morning by one of our boats. Maybe its time to give it a proper name.

We enjoyed this sunny day the best way we could, going out to the sea and knowing a bit more about the wondrous marine life of the island. Book now a trip with us to have an amazing experience like this one!

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