06.05.2025 – The high seas

The wonderful Atlantic Ocean, an exhilarating and challenging workspace for our team. Finding cetaceans isn’t always easy for our team but even the tiniest creatures, like the Portuguese Man O’War (Physalis physalis), can be a huge source of entertainment for our guests….as can their predators! As they sail the high seas, these hydrozoan colonies represent an important prey for many incredible creatures with sea turtles being their most famous menace. The Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) visiting our archipelago, many of them juveniles arriving from a long travel across the ocean from Cape Verde or even Florida, love to indulge on Man O’Wars. We have unfortunately never witnessed this but turtles have a very thick skin lining their throat and have shared the oceans with hydrozoans for time immemorial.

We saw Loggerheads in the afternoon and saw cetaceans on all trips apart from one afternoon trip and these included Short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) and Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus).

By Paula Thake

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

09:00 Bottlenose dolphins, Portuguese Man O’ War

13:00 No cetacean sightings, Loggerhead turtle

Stenella

09:30 Atlantic spotted dolphins, Bottlenose dolphins, Portuguese Man O’ War

13:30 Short-beaked common dolphins, Loggerhead turtle