Dolphin love and family time

Today we had the pleasure of spending the morning with a few nice family groups of common dolphins. In total we encountered 3 different groups of common dolphins, each of them interesting in their own way. The first group was near Ponta Delgada and although the group was small, we spotted much larger bottlenose dolphin in the group - maybe the same one as yesterday? The second group was an active one and we could see a lot of dolphin love - mating activity which is a good sign that they are creating the babies for the next summer. The third group had a lot of smaller babies in it so they were really fun to watch. The bond between mother and calf is always very strong and we could see this in the way they were swimming side by side and coordinating their movements. After our dolphin encounters we made a brief visit to the protected area of Vila Franca Islet where we saw different nesting bird species and of course the red rock crabs!

Common dolphin calf leaping alongside our boat

Dolphin love

Dolphins swimming fast on their sides - mating behaviour

Full action - ongoing mating

A beautifully coloured rock pigeon sneaking through the vegetation of Vila Franca Islet

Juvenile gull on the islet

Red rock crab




Aboard Cetus

Dolphins rock a lot!

This morning was a calm and interesting dolphin morning. We started with common dolphins feeding with Cory's shearwaters and yellowlegged gulls, we could see some slow activity and we were waiting for a feeding frenzy but it never started. Maybe it had already ended. All of a sudden we had at least two larger dolphins in the group: two bottlenose dolphins. But we heard on the radio that the lookout had seen more bottlenose dolphins further west. We left the smaller dolphins. After spending some time with the bottlenose dolphins our captain decided to try the hydrophone to listen to the dolphins, but they didn't want to talk today. We could only hear the ocean waves. At the end of the tour we slowly moved back towards Ponta Delgada close to the shoreline and enjoyed the view of the village called Rocha da Relva and the lava formations and layers from the different eruptions throughout time.

Photos from today:

Common dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins - a pale individual in between two of a more typical shade or grey

Watching bottlenose dolphins from our catamaran "Cetus"


A great time on top deck

A bright afternoon

Today began grey and rainy, but ended bright and sunny and with some nice wildlife encounters. In the morning we tried to go out to sea after the rain cleared up a bit. We got to see a beautiful double rainbow after leaving Ponta Delgada. However, the mist hung around the island so that our vigias could not see much, so we returned to land to try again later in the day. In the afternoon we had blue skies so that we could enjoy a lovely group of common dolphins between Ponta Delgada and Vila Franca. We also had some glimpses of a shy loggerhead turtle and then we finished our tour by enjoying the views of Vila Franca Islet and the south coast of Ponta Delgada on the return journey.

Photos from today:

The rainbow of the morning

Common dolphin in the beautiful blue ocean of the Azores

Common dolphin racing our boat

Mother and calf

Watching common dolphins from our catamaran

Loggerhead turtle coming up for air

 Checking out Vila Franca Islet

Watching dolphins and the natural beauty of Vila Franca Islet

Today we returned to the ocean and had some great encounters with our resident species, the common dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin. We also had the pleasure of enjoying the natural beauty of Vila Franca Islet, on which we saw some of the species that nest there, such as the common tern and rock pigeon. In the afternoon we also had a more rare sighting of a little egret on the islet. It was a windy day, but in the afternoon the sun came out, so all in all it was another pleasant day out on the ocean in the middle of the Atlantic.

Photos from today:

A close encounter with a bottlenose dolphin

Watching bottlenose dolphins from our catamaran

Bottlenose dolphin surfacing

Watching common dolphins

Common dolphin leaping next to our catamaran

Approaching Vila Franca islet and enjoying the afternoon sunshine

Little egret flying over Vila Franca Islet

Beaked whales and many dolphins in a perfect calm ocean

Today was one of those perfect calm days, just like in the middle of summer. The ocean was calm and clear and it was like gliding over a mirror with perfect reflections. In this calm ocean we first encountered two of our resident dolphin species: common dolphins followed by bottlenose dolphins. Just when we thought that would be it for the tour we received news that some beaked whales had been spotted just a bit further to the east. It didn't take us long to see them and we were lucky to see them well, which is usually not the case with these very shy and elusive animals. Here in the Azores we can see 6 different beaked whales species and it can be very difficult to determine which is encountered because of the difficulty in observing these animals. However, from our photos our biologists aboard the catamaran could determine that they were Blainville's beaked whales. The clients aboard our zodiac boat this morning also had a bonus encounter with a loggerhead turtle.

Just like summer!

Video of the common dolphins bowriding in crystal clear water

Photos from today:

Common dolphin with plastic on its beak - luckily the plastic fell off and the dolphin is safe - for now

Common dolphin surfacing to breathe


A bottlenose dolphin juvenile


Alvin - a well-known bottlenose dolphin

Our zodiac boat with bottlenose dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins

Beaked whale surfacing - notice the prominent beak that gave these whale their name

Beaked whale with a missing fin tip


Watching common dolphins

What a gift!

This morning we started with a small and calm group of common dolphins very close to the marina. They were calmly approaching the boat and letting us be with them. We soon left them to see a much larger group of bottlenose dolphins. Within minutes we were seeing and enjoying high jumps and tails sticking out of the water. A show that made our experience all more then worth it. When we were with the common dolphins we only saw adults so we hadn't seen any babies yet, but we did see some bottlenose dolphin babies. We realised that all of a sudden we were surrounded by babies, only, these were not bottlenose dolphin babies, they were spotted dolphins in the bottlenose group - such a bonus - two in one! It is always a gift to see two species interact with each other, tumbling around in the water and the two playing with each other and our boat as well.

In the afternoon we got a "larger" gift, lets say a several tons bigger: two fin whales. As if the morning was not great enough. One of the fin whales were very curious and we had a close encounter with two of the second largest animals in the world. And these whales are "winners", as they survived the whaling on Iceland and managed to start the migration down south again, so hopefully we will see them in spring. We sure hope more fin whales are lucky. We also encountered common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. 

Photo from this morning:

Bottlenose dolphin

Spotted dolphin and bottlenose dolphin

Our swimming boat

Photos from the afternoon:

One of the two adult fin whales we encountered

Bottlenose dolphin

Eye to eye with a wild bottlenose dolphin - there's nothing like it!

Bottlenose dolphins