azwhales
Today, the sun was shining! It is the first sign of the summer! The day started off great with bottlenose dolphins. They were curious and coming close to our boat, and at some point they all surfaced at the same time next to the boat!
What a beautiful sight! Then, we continued on to search for a whale that had been spotted by our lookout. Whilst on the way, one of our boats spotted a blue shark! It was about a meter long and had really long pectoral fins. It remained at the surface for a couple of seconds but when we tried to encounter it again, it dove.
Then we arrived to the area of the whale but no luck…this whale was very elusive and we did not spot it at first sight.
So, we continued to encounter other species and indeed we did! One of our boats found 3 beaked whales! One of them was a calf and they surfaced 2 or 3 times before they dove. They were super close to the boat and we could see them quite well, even though they disappeared into the waves after the last surface.
Afterwards we had another call of the elusive whale that was spotted and indeed, one of our boats spotted a blow! However, this whale could not be identified as it dove again.
In the meantime, we found a really small turtle, which was a loggerhead. As we waited a long time for the whale to surface, we decided to go back to Ponta Delgada because we were slightly on the late side.
But then, as if we did not see enough species, one of our boats had a beautiful last surprise.
One that was in fact quite rare. The surface looked like a beaked whale at first, the individual was quite small. So we waited until it surfaced again and there it was, right behind the boat! What happen next was crazy, the individual became very curious and was swimming around the engine and around our boat. Then we saw the white pectoral fins and it was clear, we had a MINKE whale! This species is in fact quite rare to spot around the Azores and we got very lucky! So we had a day with 2 rare species, beaked whales which looked like sowerby’s, and a minke whale.
However, only one of our boats got lucky to see the minke and the beaked whales! As this is nature, and the surfacings of these two species are short, it is hard to spot them. So it is very special when we do! Another two of our boats managed to see another dolphin species, the common dolphins. They were playing in the waves and socializing.
In the afternoon we headed to a group of bottlenose dolphins wich
immediatly aproached the boat with immense curiosity!
After several minutes of
watching them our lookouts told us that some time ago a sperm whale went for a
deep dive. We know that those dives last for about 45 minutes so we went to the
area and waited for the 45 minute dive mark, so it passed and reached to 1 hour
underwater! After 70 minutes under the surface, the big sperm whale came to
breathe and what a male it was!! Really big and relaxing on the surface,
allowing us to see it perfectly. After a brief time resting and breathing he
slowly arched the dorsal hump letting us know that it was time for him to
resume his hunt and to do the sperm whale signature move, fluking!
immediatly aproached the boat with immense curiosity!
After several minutes of
watching them our lookouts told us that some time ago a sperm whale went for a
deep dive. We know that those dives last for about 45 minutes so we went to the
area and waited for the 45 minute dive mark, so it passed and reached to 1 hour
underwater! After 70 minutes under the surface, the big sperm whale came to
breathe and what a male it was!! Really big and relaxing on the surface,
allowing us to see it perfectly. After a brief time resting and breathing he
slowly arched the dorsal hump letting us know that it was time for him to
resume his hunt and to do the sperm whale signature move, fluking!
Great sunny afternoon in São Miguel with two resident species!
azwhales
Futurismo Biologists Team
Sandrina Rodrigues
