Breachings and flukes

Today we passed to groups of dolphins, both common and bottlenose, as we were heading towards a sperm whale family. We arrived and could see blows far away. We encountered many females from this group and one of them gave us an extra show by breaching several times. Probably she needed to "release pressure" as we could see some brownish water and when we dived she also released some poop. With one of the whales we had bottlenose dolphins around. On our way back we stopped for both the common dolphins and the bottlenose dolphins, which had lots of new born babies.

Sperm whale breaching far away

Sperm whale logging

Our dear clients watching a sperm whale

One fluke

Another fluke

Watching common dolphins

Watching common dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins, mother and baby

Watching bottlenose dolphins

Watching bottlenose dolphins

Watching bottlenose dolphins

A whale called Nele

Today we encountered a familiar group of sperm whales. In the beginning they were not showing us their tails, which makes it difficult for us to recognise the individuals because we identify them primarily by the unique marks they have on their flukes (tails). After some patience our clients aboard the catamaran had one last encounter with an adult female who did show us her tail. Our biologists instantly recognised it as a familiar fluke from our catalogue and it turns out it is a whale called Nele (named by a client called Helmut who encountered this whale with us last year and shared his photos with us). We first encountered Nele here in São Miguel in June 2011 and since then we have encountered her 7 more times.

We also had some nice dolphin encounters today. Common dolphins were spread out everywhere in a large area and there was also a group of bottlenose dolphins close to shore. There were at least 2 newborn calves in the bottlenose dolphin group and they were curiously swimming near the bow of our catamaran.

Photos from this morning:

Two sperm whales who never showed us their tails

A sperm whale called Nele at the surface

Nele going down on a deep dive

Bottlenose dolphin calf between two adults

Bottlenose dolphins - baby face peeking out behind its mother

Two of our boats out on the water

Dolphin watching

Today's tours ended up being very nice dolphin watching tours. Our coastal based lookouts did spot a couple of sei whales in both the morning and afternoon, but being wild animals sometimes it's just not possible to encounter them from our boats no matter how much patience we have. Nevertheless, several groups of common dolphins and also bottlenose dolphins brightened up our day and made for some nice swimming with dolphins opportunities. The baby dolphins were also a bonus.

Photos from the morning:

One of our zodiacs with bottlenose dolphins

Bottlenose baby face 

Mother and calf

Photos from the afternoon:

Bottlenose dolphins

Watching common dolphins from the bow of our catamaran

Dolphin encounters

This morning we set out to encounter some of the wild and free dolphins that the Azores has to offer. We ended up seeing a nice social group of bottlenose dolphins and a larger group of common dolphins that were travelling and leaping in the way that we usually see striped dolphins travelling.We got to see some nice jumps from the bottlenose dolphins and our swimmers had some nice underwater encounters with them - often very close! The highlight of our common dolphin encounter was the large number of tiny babies that they had with them. During the morning we aslo caught a lot of drizzle and rain, making photography a bit difficult. However', today's encounters were more about enjoying the moment and seeing the dolphins with our own eyes.

Jump, jump, jump!

This morning was full of active dolphins, we saw three different species and they were all jumping today. The bottlenose dolphins closer to shore gave us some impressive high jumps and beautiful smiles. Later on and further out we encountered a large group of about 150 to 200 common dolphins feeding. We could early see the Cory's shearwaters fly around above the dolphins. As it was a bit wavy the dolphins were jumping a lot in the waves. In all this feeding frenzy one part of the dolphin group took of, running and jumping - there were some striped dolphins in all of this. And striped dolphins normally jump a lot. It was a morning of action.

Bottlenose dolphin

Bottlenose dolphin

Bottlenose dolphin smile

Mother and calf (common dolphin) jumping together

This photo is not sharp, but the baby was just sooooo cute ;)

Striped dolphins - look at them GO

A morning with "Orca" and her family and pilot whales

This morning we enjoyed the company of a family group of sperm whales that is well known to us here off São Miguel Island. Our most frequently encountered female sperm whale is in this group and we call her "Orca" because of a pale saddle patch on her back that reminds us of the saddle patch on an orca. During our morning tour we encountered this whale Orca and some of the other members in her group, including a juvenile that was curious towards our catamaran. We got to see some tails, including a double tail from Orca and a juvenile she was with. Between our sperm whale encounters we also had a nice encounter with a group of pilot whales. The pilot whales were hanging out at the surface and also socialising a bit. A few times we got to see some of the large males spyhopping (sticking their heads out of the water to have a good look above the water). While we were travelling we also spotted some bottlenose dolphins and several flying fish.

Photos from this morning:

Our first sperm whale of the day

 The sperm whale "Orca" (notice the saddle patch) with a juvenile

"Orca" and juvenile fluking

Watching a curious juvenile sperm whale

A curious pilot whale spyhopping, facing right towards us

Pilot whales

 Another pilot whale spyhopping