14.04.218 – Animalistic galley

After windy days without any trips we had today much better conditions for a wonderful tour on the ocean. Quite a lot of Portuguese man o’ wars (Physalia physalis) sailed over calm seas. They are marine hydrozoans of the family of the Physaliidae. The Portuguese man o’ war is not a jelly fish but a colonial organism made of different animals specialised in reproduction, ingestion, protection, which work in a symbiosis and are not able to survive independently. Together they are strong, beautiful and very dangerous. The name Portuguese man o’ war comes from an 18th-century Portuguese armed sailing ships. On the surface it looks like an animalistic galley.

We sailed unhurried over the ocean but suddenly a group of Blainville Beaked (Mesoplodon densirostris) whales came up. The animals were very shy and had two tiny ones in their midst. Subsequently we met a school of our gorgeous Common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), which passionately enjoyed swimming in the bow wave. The animals turned to their side to observe the enthusiastic guests. On our way back we met more bow wave fans, a pod of four Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) joined us for a while. This was a fantastic trip!

By Fatima Kutzschbach

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

10:00 Blainville Beaked whales, Common dolphins, Bottlenose dolphins

15:00 Bottlenose dolphins