Leaps and breaches among socialising animals!

Perfect sea and weather conditions have been maintained today, allowing us to enjoy a good day of sightings.

After leaving Ponta Delgada, we sailed off the coast in our catamaran towards the area indicated by our lookouts via VHF. When we were close to the point, with our biologists in the crow’s nest, we started to see black figures appearing in the waves… sperm whales! Within minutes we reached the position to get a clear view of three adult sperm whales that had recently surfaced. However, they soon disappeared into the water, although we knew that they would soon reappear as they had not shown their tails, so they did not make a deep dive.

The “whale-waiting” period then began. While we waited for the animals to reappear, and as usual on our trips, we took advantage of the time to explain in greater depth the characteristics of the species we were sighting, our research projects and other curious facts. We took the opportunity to observe in the distance Santa Maria Island against the horizon, but also the different things floating near the boat, such as salps and Portuguese man-o-war.

Twenty minutes later… blow at our 10 o’clock! Once again a tight group of sperm whales appeared on the surface, although it was difficult to know if they were the ones we had sighted earlier. As we approached, a juvenile sperm whale gave us an unforgettable moment, breaching twice, taking almost his whole body out of the water and then falling down while raising salty spray. A very special moment that is not very common to see, but that we are sometimes lucky enough to enjoy on our trips. After four of them fluked like “waving goodbye with their tail before going on a feeding dive we continued our journey.

A little closer to the coast we started to see the first dolphins of the day, which later turned out to be part of a large group of bottlenose dolphins. We began our sighting with two dolphins who decide to approach the boat to check us out, letting us get a really close look at them. Before we knew it, we found ourselves surrounded 360 degrees by dolphins, which were leaping around in all directions. In the midst of the crowd we managed to spot a mother swimming with her calf, which was only a few months old.

After this, we started our return to port but not before saying hello to our last sighting, a small group of bottlenose dolphins. We noticed the way one of them swam, which also had a peculiarly shaped melon and it looked like one we had seen before some time ago. So sometimes it feels like meeting old friends.

This was the end of a fantastic day, which gave us the opportunity to see two different species, both in and out of the water. Observing them in the air is always a special treat and this made us happy to see one way of their communication among each others. If you want to enjoy days like today, don’t forget to book your place on board!