13.05.2022 – Sailing Beauty

Published by Fatima Kutzschbach on May 20, 2022

Even though we didn’t have any marine mammal sightings on the Ribeira Brava in the morning, it was still an eventful tour. A pretty Portuguese man-o-war, iridescent in varying shades of blue and pink, did a few flips. This enabled us to look at them from different perspectives. This sailing beauty is not an animal, no, four different strains of polyps live together in an effective community, in which each fulfills its specific task (transport, reproduction, digestion, procurement of food).

A fender drifted in the blue of the sea. However, the rich life on the underside only became visible when fished out. A number of Gooseneck barnacles had settled on a green carpet of algae, with small crabs cavorting between them. All these little creatures used the fender as a raft to be chauffeured through the ocean. Barnacles are actually crustaceans.

A canister was floating not far from our first find. A rope attached to the canister reached down into the blue depths. Carlos pulled out the canister, followed by an almost infinite length of rope. He pulled and pulled and pulled… but then at some point the end of the rope came into view. Task completed!

Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea) fought over fishy morsels.

In the afternoon on Stenella the search for marine mammals continued. Luckily, we had patient and interested guests on board. And then there was the spotter’s good news reporting Short-finned Pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus). It was a nice, quiet encounter. On the way back to the harbor, we observed a Loggerhead turtle (Careatta caretta). Well, actually she was watching us, very closely.