When the fog lifted we were enlightened by the wildlife out there

passeios mar baleias acores

The very limited visibility cleared throughout the day and our lookouts managed to find bottlenose dolphins and sperm whales both in the morning and afternoon so we were told to go west.

From our zodiac our guests also managed to see for a few moments Risso’s dolphins in the morning tour. These were travelling slowly towards west what allowed us to have a nice sighting of the group.
Under a shiny sun and a slight breeze, we left Ponta Delgada harbour towards the most western part of the island on the afternoon again.

There was almost no glare and the sea conditions were fine for observing the precious marine mammals inhabiting the waters off São Miguel Island! Our lookouts pointed us to the spot where we had the opportunity to watch a very large group of 80 to 100 individuals of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), one of our resident species. The group was very dispersed and we had the chance to observe them all around our boat for a long time. We were surrounded by active socialising dolphins!

After this sighting, we had to speed up quickly because our lookouts saw another marine mammal. In this case, there was a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) which after a few minutes of breathing on the surface took a shallow dive. Just about 20 minutes later, there was another blow and so we went towards it. At first, we thought it was the same sperm whale but using the photos we took, we confirmed that it was another sperm whale without white pigmentation on its back! We had the luck to watch this individual take a deep dive and observe the tail when it went to deep waters to feed.

After this beautiful sighting we still had a long way back and decided to return to Ponta Delgada.

To sum up, we saw a large group of bottlenose dolphins and two different sperm whale individuals and different species of sea birds like the Cory’s Shearwaters and the common terns, as well as the scenic landscape of the western south coast with its beautiful volcanic layers exposed by the erosion on the cliffs.

Just another great day!

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