03.09.2021 – Tomorrow’s another day

It’s hard to know what to anticipate when we go out to sea; just yesterday our crew had an incredible line-up of sightings that even included an encounter with a rare beaked whale on board our Stenella in the evening. Today things were a little harder, conditions at sea made it challenging for our team to find animals but, luckily, our excellent spotter Carlos had already located a group of Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) for our guests to snorkel with. Sadly, the dolphins weren’t in the mood to approach us, a rare phenomenon with this interactive species. Our team respected the evasive behaviour of the dolphins and kept the sighting brief but our guests were nonetheless delighted at this wonderful encounter.

Both our boats struggled to find animals during the afternoon and set different course to expand our search area and help our spotter as he desperately scanned the surface of the Atlantic for activity. Despite searching an enormous area, both boats were not able to find animals in the afternoon but our Stenella did manage a sighting with anther group of spotted dolphins in the evening. We also managed to see a pair of Bugio’s petrels (Pterodroma feae) as we searched the Western waters for more cetaceans, a bird that is known to breed on the Desertas and rarely visits this side of the island. 

Our team is conscious of the reality of finding animals on an ever-changing ocean. Every day and every tour is different and, so, we end the more difficult days knowing that tomorrow is another day with new challenges but also new surprises.

By Paula Thake

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

10:00 Atlantic spotted dolphins

15:00 No sighting

Stenella

09:30 Atlantic spotted dolphins (Snorkelling)

14:00 No sightings

17:00 Atlantic spotted dolphins