Tuesday was day #3 of our Azores trip. For today I had booked a trip that I had been wanting to do for a very long time
Whale & dolphin watching
Of course, there is never a guarantee that you’ll see any, however, if we were to not see any animals the tour provider, Pico Aventura, would either refund us partially or give us the option to go on a second tour which is awesome, right? Well, lucky or unlucky for us we saw a lot of animals.
We were a group of maybe twenty people and we had two guides, young marine biologists plus the lady skipper navigating the glass fiber boat. For the first hour or so we were just speed boating away from the harbor, not quite parallel to the shore. The offshore swell got quite big but no white caps and the boat was rocking and jumping on them - fun - fun - fun!
Then we saw a couple of other tour boats stationary and sure enough our skipper also slowed down and one of our guides informed us that we got lucky, we were about to witness our first
Sperm whales
There were three of them together visible on the surface and, apparently, they are part of a bigger group. And sure enough a little later we saw another couple to the starboard of our boat. One of them did a shallow dive and swam right next to one of the other tour boats without them noticing the whale but we were able to see it despite it being under water.
Due to the boat's machine noise the whales obviously were aware that we were there but it didn’t seem to bother them too much. Generally though, all the boats kept their distance and made sure they didn’t drift too close and possibly stress the whales.
One of the group of three whales was a calf, probably a year old but it was already huge. Occasionally, you would see water fountains when they exhaled through their blowholes. It was magnificent to witness these little giants. Apparently, sperm whales alternate swimming in groups on the surface like we witnessed and diving for up to forty five minutes hunting food before surfacing again. The calf that is with this group will be fed milk from any of the females in the group and will never be left alone.
Suddenly, our guide got all excited ‘she’s going to dive, she’ll show us her tail’, ‘wait for it’, ‘oh, no, not yet’… ‘but now…no’. Three or four false alarms later she finally went for a deep (hunting) dive and to get down fast and low they are doing their famous tail movement. It was awesome!
Unfortunately, I am still not a hundred percent comfy with my new-ish camera and it sometimes focused on a wave or the land instead of the whale, so a lot of the photos came out a bit fuzzy. I guess I also was just a wee bit excited. Darn’! I was really angry and disappointed with myself. But - what can you do. I was there, I had the experience and enjoyed it a ton. (More) photos would have been the icing on the cake but are not essential. A couple of the tail fin photos came out okay and here are some photos of the sperm whales.
Eventually, our guides decided to take leave to see if we could find some more animals. Which meant more boat riding the waves - woohoo!!
Not for long though because we found a huge group of
Common Dolphins
There were so, so many! Our guides estimated maybe a hundred dolphins, a very big group. They were all around us. Swimming alone or in groups. We saw a few babies, too, usually the mom swimming in between the boat and shielding the baby. We seriously did not know where to look first. Where would the next ones break the surface? (No) apologies for the ton of photos - it was simply amazing! Compiling these photos made me all giddy again 😆.
And - oh wow - they’re right next to our boat, I can almost touch them! The water is so clear we can see the dolphins under the water surface while swimming alongside the boat surfing the wake and then breaking the surface - whoa! This is sooooo neat, such an unbelievable experience. We got so lucky! Smiles and laughs all around. We were amazed.
After a little while the dolphins stopped surfing our wake and moved on, as did we, After all, we had this booked as a day tour of whale and dolphin watching and going snorkeling in
Vila Franca Islet & Lagoon
The dolphins had lead us pretty close to Vila Franca so the boat ride to the harbor didn’t take too much longer (unfortunately). We got to the port and moored the glass fiber boat to catch a ferry to the island lagoon. Only specific ferries are allowed to moore at the islet. The ferries are kind of funny looking open wooden boats and the ride took maybe ten minutes.
The yellow boat in the middle of the pic was our tour boat, further below in the post you will see the funky and open ferry boat.
The islet is another volcanic formation. It was a volcano that collapsed in the center and thus formed this circular sheltered lagoon in it’s middle. Ocean water comes in and goes out through different cracks but it really is a sheltered lagoon as you will see in the photos.
Of course, we couldn’t say ‘no’ to going snorkeling. Pico Aventura had provided us with masks and snorkel at the start of the day and we happily used them. The water was a bit of a shock to our warmed up bodies but only the first few seconds then the water was wonderful and so very clear. We were amazed to see very similar if not the same kind of fish that we see when we are snorkeling on Bonaire. Since I didn’t bring any underwater gear I didn’t take any photos but, once again, it was wonderful.
We arrived at the lagoon at about 12:30 and were to leave on the 4 pm ferry back to Vila Franca. That meant we had loads of time to dry off and wander around a little. Unfortunately, there was no shade at all. As usual we brought our 50+ sunscreen and had applied it when we got here and reapplied it after snorkeling. Despite that I am very sad to report I got sunburned pretty badly. I hate it when that happens especially when I did the right things. Guess I should have done even more - covered up more. Sun and water is a pretty dangerous mix. Which we know, of course, from our windsurfing and which is why I’m surprised because on Bonaire which is a lot closer to the equator I haven’t gotten burned in a while.
Oh well, what’s done is done, suffice to say I suffered for the rest of the week - carrying a bag or backpack - ouch! Lying in bed - ouch - turning on to the other side and arm - ouch ouch!! Hahaha - so bad.
Here are some island inhabitants and another view of the circular lagoon, the town of Vila Franca is in the background.
Anyways, come 3:45 pm we went to the pontoon to wait for the 4 pm ferry. Just in time to see the previous one leaving. Curiously, it wasn’t moving very fast and then, almost out of eye sight, it seemed to stop - hmmm, strange. Well, we sat down at the pier to wait for the next one which - btw - is the same boat, there is only one ferry going back and forth. We waited, it got 4 pm, the crowd queued behind us, no ferry. 4:30 pm still no ferry, people started joking the guides were trying to get intel. 4:45 pm apparently the ferry had engine problems and the 3:30 pm ferry we had watched earlier needed to be towed to port.
Did I mention that in the meantime the ocean had transformed? Now there were lots of waves and white caps. Imagine a smallish boat with no engine in those? No bueno. I'm glad we did not jump on the previous ferry - see the open boat below in the middle.
Finally, around 5:30 pm our ferry appeared, still the same boat but with a new gas filter. Needless to say that all of us prayed for no further engine troubles. Through all of this our group got split and only hubby and I made it onto this ferry, the rest had to wait for the next trip. As I mentioned the sea had gotten rougher and after having dried off nicely from snorkeling we once again got showered upon and drenched once more. But we were in good spirits and finally made it back to port where the ferry picked up a few late guests, turned around to go back to the islet to get the remaining visitors.
While waiting in port for the rest of the group we changed into some dry clothes and walked to our tour boat to meet our skipper. She told us that she had tried to convince the officials to let her pick up the group directly at the islet but - no luck. Only the ferries are allowed to dock there! So we waited for another half an hour or so for the rest of the group to make it back, boarded our speedboat, put on our jackets and life vests and off we went - direction Ponta Delgado.
With the ocean being now a lot rougher than before guess what happened? Yup, we got splashed on and drenched once again - LOL - it was a very wet day but so worth it! Especially, because our guides spotted some more animals, so once again we slowed to an almost stop and saw
Bottlenose Dolphins
They are a lot bigger and also much darker than the common dolphins we saw in the morning. It also was a much smaller group, we saw only five or six. This time I didn’t bother anymore with the camera, I was too tired, I just grabbed my iPhone and got these pics
Unlucky for me, one of our guides while the boat rocked on a wave he stomped on my right foot full force while keeping his balance.
Not his fault at all, accidents happen, but, man, did that hurt. A) because of the sunburn and b) because of the force - days later and I still have a nasty bruise to show for. But since it is not a moving part of the foot it doesn’t really bother me.
What did and does bother me is the fact that a couple of days later I was an idiot and banged my middle toe of the very same foot. And I banged it so hard that both hubby and I heard the crack sound it made i.e. Guess I broke it, can you believe it?! Now this did and does hurt because of moving your toe when walking, can’t really avoid it and can't really treat it. But I’m sure it’ll heal soon enough - fingers crossed.
And that concludes Tuesday and with it all the adventuring we booked in advance for visiting Sao Miguel, Azores. The remaining days we were going to wing it and drive around and visit the hot springs and natural pools you can find all around the island.
But that’s for another post.Till next time!
Have a great rest of your day!
Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee
