05.10.2023 – Golden heat

Today’s heat didn’t help our searches at sea, neither did the sand particles from the Sahara desert which created a golden cloud around the island. This combination does, however, give our island a beautiful golden hue and the sand particles also fertilise plankton at the surface of the ocean and cool it down, an important contribution during such heatwaves. The ugly consequences of a warming climate are becoming increasingly visible with heatwaves heating coastal waters up to 4 degrees celsius above their normal temperature range. While this simply means that the water is less chilly for human bathers, it has catastrophic consequences for marine life, particularly sessile animals like corals that are unable to escape the heat.

Warmer temperatures can change ocean currents, affecting prey availability for many predators including dolphins and this often forces them to continue foraging in the open ocean rather than approach coastal waters. This is especially true for small dolphin species that feed on planktivorous fish…and those happen to be the dolphins we target for specific activities. We spent our morning searching the ocean for Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) for our snorkelers and ended up stumbling upon a group of their closely related cousins, the beautiful but highly evasive Striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) about 7 nautical miles off the coastline. The spotted dolphins only showed up in the late afternoon and, like the striped dolphins, were encountered far offshore. 

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) prefer to forage in coastal waters and seem to find an abundance of prey despite the heat. Both our vessels managed a lovely sighting with during both our morning and afternoon tours, allowing our team to score a few more smiles from our guests in the scorching heat.

By Paula Thake

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

09:30 Bottlenose dolphins

13:30 Bottlenose dolphins

Stenella

09:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Striped dolphins

13:30 Atlantic spotted dolphins, Bottlenose dolphins

16:30 Bottlenose dolphins