22.10.2025 – Breakfast

Today on the first trip we encountered a piece of squid drifting at the surface of the ocean and it was a first glimpse of what we could expect for the rest of the trip, as this piece of squid was the breakfast of one of the Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) we encountered later that trip. Sperm whales hunt for these squids in the deep sea reaching even depths of up to 2km and dive times of normally 45 minutes. Madeira is an ideal place to see these magnificent animals as they stay here the whole year and reproduce. This fact we could encounter on our second trip, were we saw a baby sperm whale.

Apart from these animals we also saw some Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) a common resident of our island. It was a mixed sitting which means that both species were encountered next to each other.

By Horst Schulte

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

09:00 Sperm whales

13:00 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales

Stenella

09:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales

13:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales

16:30 Bottlenose dolphins, Sperm whales