13.09.2025 – It’s playtime

Today was an eventful day with a lot of cute sightings. It started with Cuvier’s beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris). This beak whale is a shy animal and difficult to see from our vessels. Today we had a lot of luck to have a nice sighting of them.

The cute bit off the day came after that with the Short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) as in the groups we encountered several babies and juveniles which were playing between each other. It was simply a cute sighting. Later also some Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) joined the pod playing between each others.

On the second trip we encountered the Pilot whales and dolphins again, but the star of that trip was the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus). The juvenile was having his fun playing with the free diving buoys of some spear fisher. For them it was a special sighting as only 29-30 seals are left on Madeira.

By Horst Schulte

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

09:00 Bottlenose dolphins, Cuvier’s beaked whales, Short-finned pilot whales

13:00 Bottlenose dolphins, Short-finned pilot whales

Stenella

09:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Cuvier’s beaked whales, Short-finned pilot whales

13:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Short-finned pilot whales, Mediterranean monk seal

16:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Short-finned pilot whales