2020 Baleen Whales Winter Collection.

What a unique day that will stay in the memories of all our guest joining us today.

On our tours we meet people from all over the world, some of them have already seen a whale before, but TODAY, no one on board had seen a whale ever before. One of our guests even told me it was her dream to sight a whale and that she was unable to sleep the days prior to the tour due to excitement.

And for the lucky guests today, something magical happened not only they sighted whales but 3 different types of Baleen whales!

We started our tour with an encounter of the most colored dolphins you will meet – The Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis). I enjoy always how mesmerising they can look under the water or when fastly swimming in order to feed.

We navigated into the blue desert to spot a 4 meter blow out on the horizon and to our surprise when we got there, a Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis) was moving rapidly in order partake in her annual migration.

We waited a little bit, since we had received the news that there might be another Sei Whale swimming around, the blow was sighted from our land based vigias.

We spotted the blow and as the whale made it to the surface to breathe and restore oxygen to its lungs, the body that arched out of the water made it clear it was a Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus). Our first sighting of the year 2020 for this species. The animal’s body and blow made it clear we were observing a big individual that roughly was around 17-19 meters.

 

 

Nicole- our lookout, land based colleague, communicated on the radio the information about another blow 2 nautical miles close to shore. We got there and found a group of Common Dolphins that were feeding from a big fish bank. We navigated to the East and we had no certainty of observing the whale, we were patient and waited and then BUMMMMM- Blow and who was there ???- A Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) and the tensions grew high when we sighted the whale, it dove and suddenly we realised she was swimming under us, what an emotion.

 

 

So I am so happy that our guests went from whale aficionados to experts in a matter of a few hours.

I can only say that there are no words, poems or pictures that can relate the feeling of being out in the ocean today.