When it’s just too easy…Sperm whale baby, pilot whales and common dolphins

The Azores to me,  is truly  a fast changing island, regarding weather. When I know I am going to be out at sea I always carry a rain jacket, a cap and a pair of glasses, in this post I will explain why. The sea today was nice and flat, with a nice sunny hot day, we left the base to find no other than the short finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus). They are also called the “cheetahs of the big ocean” due to the high pursuits of squid at depths of hundreds of meters. But today they were not feeding, making it really wonderful for all the whale-watchers to gaze at their unique fins.  After having spent time with these big dolphins, we continued our journey to find a baby sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), the calf was really curious about what we were doing there, he decided to spyhop, meaning to analyse the environment. The baby calf started to turn around the water allowing us to take a look at his stomach, I could not believe it.  Respecting it’s space and territory, we decided to navigate north.

The clouds were slowly moving above our boat, we clearly understood that it was gonna rain soon. Navigating close to the coast we suddenly saw a large pod of common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), the new born dolphins were jumping in the pod, clearly socialising and traveling with their mothers. The scene was so beautiful, people forgot about the bad weather that was heading towards our direction. We headed direction to the island in order to go back home and  as we are not been marine mammals, we were getting really wet. We did not care, we had seen it all and were happy to go home, yet once we arrived the sun was shinning bright and strong.

So for me the morning was a quite an emotional experience, that we will all remember for a long time. So no matter how wet we got,  no one can take away all the fun we had.

Anaïs Builly

About Anaïs Builly

Anais Builly is Marine Biologist and Master of Biology, Ecology and Ecosystems, and of Bioproducts & Bioproduction of Marine Ecosystems, studied in France and South Africa. She is also Marine Wildlife Guide & Community Manager at TERRA AZUL. She is passionate about conservation of marine mammals, and loves being out in the ocean everyday.

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