Humpback whales and familiar sperm whales

Today we had fantastic sightings of humpback whales, sperm whales, bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins. We started our morning tour with a group of sperm whales that we recognise from previous years. In total we encountered 6 individuals, including several mother and juvenile pairs. It was a group that includes individuals that we refer to as “Bear paw”, “Left tip” and “Orca”. Some of these whales date back to 2008 in our photo-ID catalogue, so we have been seeing them for many years now. We also encountered some common dolphins close to Ponta Delgada at the end of the morning tour. In the afternoon we re-encountered some juveniles from the same group of sperm whales. Between our sperm whale encounters we had a surprise encounter with a curious and playful group of bottlenose dolphins, and later an even bigger surprise from a humpback whale. From our catamaran we encountered a small adult humpback whale, while our zodiac boat (and even our swimming boat) had a brief encounter with a different, slightly larger adult humpback whale. In total our coastal lookout reported 3 different humpback whales along the south coast of São Miguel Island. Not bad for a species that is not sighted often in the Azores! Our afternoon tour ended with a few common dolphins spread out along our way back to Ponta Delgada.

Aboard our zodiac boat this morning

A beautiful view of Ponta Delgada with Sete Cidades mountain behind