16.08.2022 – Against the current

Published by Fatima Kutzschbach on August 26, 2022

In the morning, the wind was not on our side. When I was just driving to work, I saw white caps covering the surface of the sea. Nor were they confined to the northwest. In the meantime, by the time we left harbor, the foam caps had expanded towards Calheta and beyond. Our morning tour was accompanied by small wave rides. But we were lucky and a school of Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) could be observed in front of the harbour. We are very happy to accept such gifts.

At the moment, the wind is playing wild capers. He is unpredictable and turns like a merry-go-round. In the evening the wind had shifted, fortunately the sea was calmer. Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) showed up, and we had nice encounters.

We also spotted a rare bird here. A Greater Shear water (Ardenna gravis, syn.: Puffinus gravis) sat serenely on the sea surface before elegantly taking off. The great Shear water is 43-51 cm tall. Its distinctive feature is the black cap and slender black beak. By the way, there are over twenty different species of Shear water. The Great Shear water doesn’t swim, but it “pulls against the tide”. That makes him extremely likable to me. It’s nice when there are some who dare to do something different. While other Shear waters later migrate south from the northern breeding grounds, this one orients itself in the opposite direction. They follow a circular direction. Its flight route starts from the east coast from South America up to North America, then crosses the Atlantic in August and stays for a while off the coasts of the western North Atlantic.