Following the flukeprints of the whales!

It was warm today, very warm! To start off we saw a beautiful group of Common dolphins just socializing between each other. Only after 5 minutes we left them, to find us some Bottlenose dolphins. They were also socializing. Once again we only stayed for about 5 minutes with them.

The reason for our shorter dolphin encounters today, was that our lookout found 2 Sei whales extremely far out, so we needed lots of time to reach them.

And so we went….almost 50 minutes to get to the area of the Sei whales, while on the way some sudden Atlantic Spotted dolphins joined us for the run, and started to jump towards the boat. But, no time to stop for them right now! Once arrived at the spot, the hide and seek began as usual. Sei whales are often hard to locate because they are so fast, and have the tendency to change direction all the time. While waiting, the Atlantic Spotted dolphins appeared again, but this time another group. They were very active foraging for fish and socializing, and showing their spotted bodies perfectly.

From the moment we were in the “Whale Zone” we probably spended about 40 minutes trying to actually find the whales, while being constantly directed in “North, East, South, West” directions. Finally, we spotted a huge blow on the horizon, and then the “flukeprints” appeared on the surface. We knew she must have been near!

 

 

Finally 2 Sei whales came up, not far from the boat, and stayed around us for a minute or 15.

 

Later on in the afternoon, the trip started out with commons and right after that, very closeby, there were the Bottlenose dolphins. You could clearly see the size in comparison with the commons, so big! After that we tried to search for the Sei whale, but she decided to stay under the surface for a long time. So instead, we came across Atlantic Spotted dolphins! They were with so many and they came up to the surface and breaching all at the same time. Usually dolphins come up and go down as a group, so you see them and then laer on they all disappeared at once. They were incredibely active and they were definitly chasing something.

 

There was a fishing boat closeby, if the dolphins decided to go for the fish then that means the end for the fishermen in that area! Dolphins are great hunters.

We came back late from our trips, but sometimes this happens when dealing with wildlife, and it is worth the wait.
Just don’t book your plane ticket 1 hour after normal arriving time, you never know if a whale is waiting for us 20 miles out like today 😉