A few more photos of the pilot whales encountered yesterday

Here are just a few more photos of the pilot whales we encountered yesterday morning and afternoon while we were on our Catamaran. These were taken by one of our other biologists aboard and show well how we watch the animals, from the viewpoint of the passengers. We usually try to have a few cameras aboard with us so we do not miss a moment, and also to get more pictures of the animals for photo-identification (we photograph and identify the animals as part of our scientific research to learn more about the groups we see here)...

This morning we had some great encounters with our resident bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins. We also tried to see a couple of fin whales that our vigia (onshore lookout man) spotted in the area, but unfortunately we were unable to find them. Sometimes we are lucky with the whales and other times not; especially if they are doing long dives and coming up for very short periods in unpredictable locations. Nevertheless, the dolphins that we saw were fantastic, as you can see in our photos from this tour...

Bottlenose dolphins

Common dolphins

Pilot whales, fin whale and common dolphins sighted today

Today we had perfect calm and clear conditions again for our whale watching tours in both the morning and afternoon. On both tours we encountered large groups of pilot whales (for the first time since January) and common dolphins. In the afternoon we also encountered a large fin whale and another smaller whale species which we could not identify because it just came up one time while we were watching the fin whale and we could not get could enough photos. We figured that maybe it was a beaked whale which are very elusive and extremely difficult to watch and identify.

 

Pilot whale group, including several small calves

 

Fin whale

 

Common dolphins swimming with our catamaran

 

As well as our cetacean sightings we also came across this loggerhead turtle at the start of our morning tour.

Blue whales 3 days in a row in São Miguel

Today was another perfect day in São Miguel. As you can see from the above photo taken this morning we had blue skies and the sea was so calm it looked like a lake. 

To make things even more perfect we saw another blue whale today, making it the third day in a row that we have seen this species. It's looking to be a great whale watching season for us this year, with so many blue whale sightings already so early in the season. We also tried to watch a fin whale that was in the area but it had a very difficult behaviour for watching, so again it was the blue whale that stole the show.

Our vigia (onshore watchman) reported that there were also beaked whales in the area, but these animals are extremely difficult to watch as they spend very little time at the surface, so we did not get to see them from our boats. But we did get to see our much more friendly resident common dolphins. We came across several different groups during the tour and the water was crystal clear so we got to see them really well. After our sightings we still had a bit of time left, so we put a nice end to the trip by visiting Vila Franca Islet before heading back into our marina in Ponta Delgada.

More blue whales. Also a fin whale, striped dolphins and common dolphins!

Today was a perfect day for us in São Miguel Island. It couldn't have been better for those that came out whale watching (and dolphin swimming) with Futurismo. In both the morning and afternoon blue whales were the highlight of the tour. But that is not all we saw; we saw 3 different cetacean species on both tours, making up a total of 4 species throughout the day. In the morning it was a blue whale, striped dolphins (for the first time this year) and common dolphins, while in the afternoon we saw another blue whale, a fin whale and the common dolphins again.

In the afternoon we had a particularly rare and special experience that we will never forget. While we were waiting for the blue whale to surface it suddenly came up about 50 meters away from our boat, heading straight towards us. To our surprise the whale kept coming towards us without any hesitation. The whale didn't seem afraid of us at all and passed just a couple of meters in front of the small rubber boat that we were on (to get straight to our photos scroll to the bottom of the page). We were looking right down to its huge blowholes as they let out a very loud blow. There are no words to describe what it was like to be in that small boat with the largest animal in the world passing by. Our photos following photos tell the rest of the story of our tours today...

Photos from the morning tour:

Blue whale seen from directly behind

Blue whale blow

Striped dolphins

Photos from the afternoon tour:

 Curious common dolphin swimming alongside our boat

The common dolphins were very playful and curious today

Fin whale (photo a bit far, but at least we saw it)

Blue whale with São Miguel Island in the background

This blue whale had a beautiful silver appearnce in the light

Blue whale heading directly towards our boat

Blue whale passing in front of our boat

Blue whale blowholes up close

...and the whale goes down on a dive right beside our boat

More blue whales sighted in São Miguel

Today we saw blue whales again! We saw two large adults of at least three whales that our vigia (onshore watchman) spotted in the area. The two whales we saw were travelling together and luckily for us they were doing short dives and staying up for long enough for us to see them really well. A few times they surfaced close to our small rubber boats that we were on today. In one of the surfacings one of the whales came up behind one of our boats, heading straight to us and diving underneath our boat as we were silently sitting and staring in amazement at the huge animal.

Ofcourse we saw dolphins too. Plenty of common dolphins which are always amazing to see. We already saw our first group only 10 minutes after leaving the marina. This is one of the dolphins we managed to photograph not to far off the coastline of Ponta Delgada.

Although this morning there were no whales for us to see we did get to see plenty of groups of common dolphins. We had a few boats out on the water for both watching and swimming with the dolphins. After spending time with several different groups we made the most of our remaining time by seeing some of the coastline of São Miguel Island before heading back in to the marina. Even if we don't see whale it is always nice to see some of the beauty of our Island, as well as the playful common dolphins...