Boat trip on 14th may 2008, at 11 a. m.

Text: Jörn / firmm

We left the port and turned towards Tanger. However, just before we reached the position where we normally meet the pilot whales and the bottlenose dolphins, I saw the blow of a sperm whale from the corner of my eye. He was about one mile from our boat and dove after a short time. I thought that it was a shame that we didn't notice him earlier which would have enabled us to watch him for a longer time, as we hadn't seen a sperm whale for about a week. We continued driving and suddenly saw 3 pilot whales. Far and wide there was nothing else to see, but this turned out to be good. In addition, 9 sperm whales appeared. It looked like water-jets had been turned on close by. So we had to go from one to the other, depending on the distance, sometimes even having to hurry. Therefore we were glad that there were no other animals around. It is always a pity when we have to leave a group of bottlenose dolphins that are playing right in front of the boat. Sometimes it is not even possible to leave because the animals swim too close around the boat - unless one has no scruples and zooms away recklessly. Among the sperm whales there was also a juvenile. I don't think that there were 10 different animals. It rather looked like some of them appeared several times. I think there were about 5 to 8 animals. Last year on our June 19th boat trip we had very similar sightings with 8 sperm whales in total. So this is a new record!

During our next trip we only saw one sperm whale, and since then no group like that again!