Common dolphins and sei whales through the clouds

Today's trip started with fog and low clouds, covering the sky and making our lookouts' job extremely difficult. Despite this we found various groups of common dolphins (Delphinus delphis). Then we started to look for 2 whales our vigia had spotted before the sky had covered up. We went their with our two boats and tried our luck and our patience, In the end we finally found two sei whales (Balaenoptera borealis) about 7 miles off the island. From there, we could not even see the island. These individuals were travelling at about 5 knots (5 miles/hour or about 9 km/hr), heading always to the southwest. It looks like the baleen whales keep moving following their migration route and passing the Azores!

One of the sei whale taking a breath

Sei whale

The two sei whales surfacing together

Watching one of the sei whales surfacing in front of our catamaran

Common dolphin surfacing beak first

Common dolphin juvenile followed by an adult

Common dolphin calf leaping playfully out of a wave

Common dolphin sticking its head out of the water to look at us

Common dolphin

Light-backed common dolphin

Comparison of the light-backed common dolphin with a normally-coloured common dolphin seen together in the same group today

And the festivities of Santo Cristo is ongoing