19.07.2017- Afternoon delight

Today our tours were all about locating and observing beaked whales; Blaineville’s beaked whales to be specific. Managing this tends to be a rather tricky endeavor. Beaked whales in general spend little time at the surface and are very shy in nature, which means that our spotter spends most of the day tracking them while our skippers approach them as carefully as possible, to avoid frightening them away.

We managed to accomplish all of this in the morning and on the afternoon tour on the Stenella. The guests on the evening tour did not see the beaked whales but we were able to encounter a friendly school of Atlantic spotted dolphins, who swam around the boat for about 20 minutes. At the end of the evening tour, we drove towards the coastal area west of Calheta and spotted a number of seabirds settling in the cliffs. Suddenly one of our guests spotted a goat leisurely bleating and munching grass at the edge of one of the cliffs. Consequently, this delightful afternoon filled with entertaining marine mammal sightings was wrapped up with a sighting of a terrestrial mammal.

by Paula Thake

Todays Sightings:

Ribeira Brava

13:30 Atlantic spotted dolphins, Blaineville`s beaked whale

17:00 Atlantic spotted dolphins

Stenella

09:00 Atlantic spotted dolphins, Blaineville`s beaked whale

15:30 Atlantic spotted dolphins, Blaineville`s beaked whale

18:00 Atlantic spotted dolphins