|28-06-2019 pm| A Sei whale is Better than a swimming with dolphins tour!

We had a swimming with dolphins activity programmed that afternoon. But no dolphins were spotted so we asked our explorers if they wanted to go on a whale watching expedition and they agreed. Dr. Zé Nuno, one of the resident Naturalist researchers head with the binoculars to increase the area surveyed by the lookouts in order to help our boat. And he did.

A Sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) was found in the south of Faial island. A late migrator, apparentelly with a full belly already!

The whale was feeding on small fish. We were alone and she was approaching the boat in an erratic behavior.

It was such a close encounter and the whale was that calm that it dived and came up near us several times. Allowing us to see it from all the angles.

We could record it under the water and catch one of the dives (stay tuned to our social media!).

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) were spotted too. We moved towards the southern coastline of Faial to see them. In our way we found some Cory's shearwaters (Calonectris borealis).

The first sperm whale came

towards us and we could see its head from the front.

More whales were there, socializing.

And we were lucky (again) with a tail-throw!

Then, a few meters away, two more Sperm whales came to the surface.

And the group was becoming bigger.

We could take pictures of some details.

And the whales dived and shallow-dived. Only one fluke was sown but we caught it.

After such a speechless expedition, once the Sperm whales went down, we went back to Horta.

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