A fin whale day

It's been another great day out on the ocean aboard several of our different boats. We spent this beautiful sunny day with fin whales, the second largest animals in the world. In the morning we encountered two individuals travelling together, and in the afternoon one that became very curious and stayed around our boats. We also encountered bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins in the morning, and several loggerhead turtles throughout day. 

Photos from the morning:

The famous bottlenose dolphin we call Bubblemaker

Photos from the afternoon:

Fin whale

Fin whale

Fin whale

Fin whale

Lots of different sightings

Today we ha a mixture of species. The morning was full of whales, we saw both sperm whales and fin whales. In the afternoon we searched a long time for one of the fin whales, but unfortunally we never saw it, and our lookout spotted a mysterious creature as well, but neither the lookout or us saw the animal again and we never knew what it was. And throughout the day we saw different dolphin species from different boats. Our 3 resident dolphin species: common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins and Risso's dolphins.

Photos from the morning:

Sperm whale

Sperm whale

Sperm whale diving

Fin whale

Common dolphins

Bowriding common dolphins

Song of Whales

Photos from the afternoon:

Risso's dolphin

Risso's dolphins diving

Risso's dolphin

Bottlenose dolphin

Wildlife all around

This calm Sunday we saw lots of different species, we saw two lovely fin whales in the morning, and common dolphins. Among the common dolphins we also had one individual without the yellow colour (see photos). In the afternoon we saw both common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. The common dolphins had lots of new born babies with them. And the group of the bottlenose dolphins had a well-known friend, Max, in the group. Max is missing the top jaw (see photos). The fin whale that was around were really shy. It was a young individual not letting boats appraoch so we saw it from a distance. We have to respect that the whales have all different personalities and we are guests in their homes. Other species sighted during this Sunday was an ocean sunfish (Mola mola), loggerhead turtles, spearfish, portuguese man-o-wars and lots of birds. 

Photos from the morning:

Fin whale

Fin whale

Fin whale

Common dolphin

Dark common dolphin and a normal one

Dark common dolphin

 Common dolphins

Photos from the afternoon:

A "normal" bottlenose dolphins - compare with Max below

Max

Max

Bottlenose dolphins

The fin whale - sorry I didn't get a better photo

Common dolphin jumping

Ocean sunfish dorsalfin

Aboard Song of Whales

Close-up and personal with whales and dolphins

It's been another long but amazing day of whale and dolphin watching off São Miguel Island in the Azores. Today we had three tours, each of them with really nice encounters with both whales and dolphins. It felt just like summer, with a bright blue sky and calm and clear ocean. In total we encountered 5 whale and dolphin species throughout the day, as well as plenty of turtles and seabirds. 

We started the morning with 2 fin whales followed by a nice group of Risso's dolphins that became curious towards one of our boats, Song of Whales, in the late morning.  After lunch we began with bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins and then went offshore where there was reported to be a small whale. To our luck it was a very curious minke whale, only our second individual of this species this year. The minke whale came right to all our boats, very close. In fact it came so close that from one of our boats the captain managed to film it underwater simply by holding a camera over the side of the boat. It seemed as if the whale was coming to greet us all, one boat at a time. 

The third tour was just as great as the first two. There was a very big group of bottlenose dolphins spread out over a large area, so we encountered many individuals as we travelled through. First they were very spread out, but in the end they came together and started socialising, meaning that we got to see a lot of impressive high leaps. It seemed they didn't want us to leave as they leapt behind our boat when we continued to try to find a whale our lookout had seen earlier. After a lot of searching and almost loosing hope our captain Mario spotted a fin whale which we had a really nice encounter with before heading back to shore. What a great day from beginning to end!

Photos from the morning tour:

Fin whale

Risso's dolphins

Two loggerhead turtles

Cory's shearwaters

Photos from the early afternoon tour:

One of our boats with bottlenose dolphins

Watching bottlenose dolphins

Bottlenose dolphin

An encounter with a curious loggerhead turtle

Seeing a common dolphin

Common dolphin

Minke whale

Minke whale surfacing - notice the white on the pectoral fin through the water

Minke whale head

Seeing the minke whale through the water

The minke whale was very curious, approaching all the boats one at a time

Photos from the late afternoon tour:

A bottlenose dolphin wave-surfing

Face to face with a bottlenose dolphin

We got to see some great jumps from the bottlenose dolphins

Fin whale surfacing

Fin whale blow

Fin whale