Whales & Dolphins

We arrived in Ponta Delgada at 7:00am Monday after an overnight flight from Boston.  After transferring to our hotel, we spent the day alternating between naps and exploring the city in order to be well rested and adjusted to the time as we had our first big excursion on Tuesday morning -- whale watching.

Modeling our rain suits which did keep us relatively dry

The Azores are a haven for both whales and dolphins as it is in the migratory pattern between the hemispheres as whales search for food.  There are over 25 species that can be found here at some point during the year and three or four can be found here year round due to the deep waters not far from the coast.  We've been whale watching once before off the coast of Maine and enjoyed it very much, but this time we were much closer to the action.

Instead of being on a nice pontoon-style boat with an upper deck and casually looking for whales while sipping drinks and eating snacks, we were essentially on a giant powerboat very close to the water.  The fact that they gave everyone rain suits should have been the first tip off -- that and the mandatory life jackets in neon orange complete with reflecting tape and safety whistle.  During our brief safety meeting, it was made very clear that we would get wet during our tour.

Bottlenose dolphin

As we set off for the open sea, we were flying through the water at about 30 knots, which is the equivalent of about 35 mph.  While that doesn't necessarily sound fast, when you're crashing through waves, bouncing up and down, and feeling a good amount of spray, it certainly feels like you're doing about 90 mph.  It wasn't long before we found a school of bottlenose dolphins and cut the engines and enjoyed watching them going by on all sides of the boat.  A couple of times they were close enough to the boat that we could almost reach out and touch them.  We also encountered a school of common dolphins on the way back into port.

Seeing the coastline of Sao Miguel island

While there wasn't a lot of whale activity today, we were able to see a fin whale which is the second largest whale to the blue whale.  We had to travel about 8 miles off the coast in order to see it.  Unfortunately, fin whales don't surface and flip their tale out of the water like other species of whale.  Because it was harder to find and spot, I don't have any pictures to share, but we were able to see it surface three or four times while shooting water out of its blowhole each time.

Today was a wonderful start to our Azores vacation -- a nice sunny day seeing some of God's great creatures.