Mr Liable visit us on the south coast of Pico!

These past days the weather wasn’t the best and we got really wet more than once. Despite the unstable weather conditions, our lookouts were able to spot cetaceans not too far from the coast and of course we decided to go for it. Wind and waves made our trips more adventurous but it was definitely worth it!

We could find a group of Risso’s dolphins staying around the boat for a while, and just before we decided to leave them, for surprise of everybody, they emerged on a perfect synchronization very close to our boat before to go for a longer dive. The shy beaked whales also showed up, once far away from the boat and the once surfing the wave passing next to our boat, unfortunately they disappeared fast and we weren’t able to see them again.

Closer to the shore, our lookout spotted also some dolphins. What an unexpected surprise it was when we first saw a pod of friendly spotted dolphins, while a bit further a group of elusive striped dolphins were jumping away, the spotted dolphins disappeared and a group of common dolphins appeared around us! 3 different species in about 10 minutes, our guests where so happy!

But the highlight of those last days is yet to come! We saw many sperm whales, females and even a female nursing a calf. But one animal, in particular, captivated our attention, an adult male was also on the south coast of Pico Island! Alone, but not very far from the group of females, we noticed that he was not as shy as other males use to be, and after we could see his magnificent caudal fin that gives us the chance to identify this individual, we realized why: This sperm whale is well known already! Mr Liable, the most encountered whale off São Miguel Island, is here on the south coast of Pico, apparently, he went for some «vacations»!

According to data from MONICET (a platform that aggregates animal records made by cetacean observation companies), Mr Liable was sighted in Pico, in June 2016.

These days, we had the luck to see him during our trips and observe many different and interesting behaviours. While we were approaching him, we were still far but we were able to see that he breached! Such a rare and spectacular behaviour for male sperm whales due to their impressive body size and weight.

Also, after several lobtailing making huge splashes around him, Mr Liable took a few oxygenating breath and perform a deep foraging dive, giving us the opportunity to admire its impressive caudal fin.