Six at one blow

Text: Carina Doll, photos: firmm

The first we found yesterday were the pilot whales. In the middle of the group, we could recognise Zackzack, one of our adopted animals. Soon, some bottlenose dolphins followed. They were curious, came closely to our boat and joyful performed some jumps. And then we spotted the first sperm whale. We could watch him from our boat as he calmly rested at the surface.

 

As soon as he dove down and showed us his beautiful fluke, we were able to locate another sperm whale. After the second one started to dive down, we saw a third sperm whale blow a little bit farther away. It was just marvellous! As he started his dive we spotted another one. While we observed him preparing to dive, we realized that we had just seen four sperm whales within a very short time! What an amazing trip!

 

And it got even better: We saw bottlenose dolphins jumping and surfing the waves in front of a cargo vessel. It was fantastic to see how much they enjoy playing at the bow of a big ship!

  

Our thoughts were still with the performance of the dolphins when we spotted a group of pilot whales. As they came closer, we realized that two pilot whales were mating. In the meanwhile some bottlenose dolphins started to swim in front of our bow. Some of them were really curious and popped their heads up above the water – behaviour which is called spy hopping.

  

We were so thrilled by all the encounters we just made that we could not believe when we heard through the speakers that two more sperm whales appeared. They rested next to each other about 50 meters away from our boat. At the end they showed us their fluke and this was also the end of our boat trip. It’s hard to believe that we saw six sperm whales at one blow. What a unique experience!