07.05.2021 – Artists on board

What a wonderful day!

In the morning there were more children than adults among our guests. Having these small, interested guests on board is always a special pleasure. And as you can see there were two great artists among them. Thank you girls. I was very happy about the beautiful drawings. 🙂 A wonderful impression of our great trip together. Nature is also a creative artist. This can be seen very clearly in the extraordinary body drawings of our dolphins today. Convince yourself and take a look at our photos.

Not far from the coast was our morning sighting, a mix of Short-beaked Common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) and Striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba). These two species of dolphins could be observed in a large, very large radius. The otherwise shy striped dolphins adapted to our luck to the sociable Common dolphins and even got into the bow wave of our fishing boats. That is a rare joy.

In the afternoon we saw another large school of Common dolphins. They were quite busy socializing, riding the bow wave, mating, and hunting too. One of these schools of fish passed us rapidly. Did they escape the hungry dolphins? Moving through the sea in a school of fish can be very useful, because on the one hand the large mass of fish from a distance looks like a large being and on the other hand increases the chances of survival in the mass. So maybe the fish on the left will be eaten, and another fish will get away. It is safety in numbers. But since dolphins can check their surroundings very precisely with their sonar, the protective mechanism of the fish is of no use in this case.

By Fatima Kutzschbach

Sightings of the day

Ribeira Brava

10:00 Common dolphins, Striped dolphins

14:30 Common dolphins, Loggerhead turtle