The 29th of June we went out without clients but in collaboration with Biosphere Expeditions.
Leaving the harbour of Horta at 9:50 towards the South of Faial and Pico islands, we planed to go Northwards the islands.
That day was a bit of a chaos, we left the harbour with information of 25 Sperm whales in the area (which we doubted it very much) but… you should not disagree with a lookout. We found the 25 individuals! But you can imagine the field of geysers it was. Marta was trying to catch as many as tails possible!
The original idea was to go Northwards, as we had been seeing the same pod of Sperm whales in the South for a few days and we wanted to see something different, new individuals, new photo ID data. But when the lookout from the South of Pico told us about this super pod of whales, we changed our mind: they were clearly not the same whales as we had been seeing.
We found the animals in smaller subgroups of 6-9 individuals.
They were diving erratically, around us, some closer and some farther away. Some groups were socializing and suddenly one Sperm whale breached quite close to us.
In the afternoon we went out again following the same group. Another Sperm whale breached 4 times! But too far away to get the picture. So, for those who do not know: Sperm whales breach too! Just don’t expect it to happen too often 😉
-Maria Serra from Azores Experiences
Pictures and details: Marta Riera from Azores Experiences
Acknowledges to Lisa Steiner and Biosphere Expeditions (https://www.biosphere-expeditions.org)
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