Learning in the best possible way

Ideal conditions to spot today, almost no wind and waves, sunshine and crystal clear dark blue waters were the background of this summerly trip in October.

It was fascinating to watch the behaviors of many dolphins through the water. We witnessed a lot of social behavior which usually is out of sight for us watching from above the surface. Some dolphins were touching each others on their flippers like holding hands others were swimming upside down.

Many were bow riding so we could clearly check out all details on their beautiful bodies. So probably you wonder what dolphins we were seeing today. We started with some Risso’s Dolphins (Grampus griseus) which prefer to eat squid and they were in the area of the squid fishermen.

We don’t know who arrived first but there must have been enough squid around for all of them. Then we observed the second resident species the Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis) followed by the third the Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursipos truncatus).

Then we searched for the seasonal Atlantic Spotted Dolphins (Stenella frontalis) and we found more Common Dolphins, but later in between Cory’s Shearwaters (Calonectris borealis), Great Shearwaters (Puffinus gravis) and Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) we passed time with the Atlantic Spotted Dolphins.

The Bottlenose and the Spotted Dolphins presented us many calf which are doing perfectly fine in this warm and summery autumn days. On our way back we came across the travelling Risso’s Dolphins which finished their breakfast and the Common Dolphins from our first sighting. Instead of heading towards the harbour we kept going to the spot where Mr. Liable a famous Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus) male dove.

He was already 40 min diving when we arrived in a zone of 600m depth and after 70 min our lookout spotted it 3 nautical miles away from where it was expected to come back to the surface. We tried our best to reach it but he was ready for its next long foraging dive before we could show it to our guests on board. But as a proof you can check the pictures where a huge tail looks small. Our youngest guest nevertheless were perfectly prepared for this whale watching tour boarding with T-Shirts of a nice diversity of marine wildlife or a profound knowledge from home and former trips with us.

It is always a pleasure to satisfy the hunger of this young generation to learn more. In the end only what we know, we appreciate and we are willing to protect.

So let’s hope that there will be many more successful days like this with interest and a lot of biodiversity to enjoy.