30.04.2019 – The Beauty and the Beast
What do you write on a day like this? Where do you start? What gets priority? Not without reason is today’s blog title: Beauty and the Beast! But let’s start with the BEAUTY: NATURE! This morning, the guests of our…
20.03.2019 – The cherry on the cake
I honestly did not expect the Atlantic ocean to be so generous to us today and the surprises that were in store were beyond magical! On both trips today our crew and guests on the Ribeira Brava cruised to and…
11.10.2018 – Exception to the rule
The toothed whale family (Odontoceti) members show a variety of hydrodynamic body shapes which determine how they surface to breathe. This is partially why swim behavior and water spouts are key identification features of different species for our crew at…
22.10.2018 – Dolphin school for kids
Today we had a beautiful sighting with two Blainville Beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris). This mother and her calf were quite sociable, to our delight. The whale girl became curious, approached our boat, turned sideways in the bow, looked up, then turned on…
05.10.2018 – Tunas and more
We never know what we might find out on the ocean before starting a tour. Clearly, our aim is to observe cetaceans but sometimes also other marine creatures provide great sightings. All encounters of the day comprised Atlantic Spotted Dolphins…
04.10.2018 – Let yourself be surprised …
On our tours we often deal with different species that can behave very differently towards us. Today, there were two marine mammal species, which usually show a shy behaviour towards the boats. But is this always the case? During the…
24.09.2018 – Voices in the depth
There has not been a lot of activity in the waters South of Madeira today. Anyway, after hours of searching from land and sea some long oval shapes came into sight not too far off the bow of our traditional…
21.09.2018 – Good and bad sightings
On our tours today, we have been lucky enough to see a variety of sea creatures: Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) and Striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) in the morning, shy Blainville´s beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris), a shark and two Loggerhead…
17.09.2018 – The goal
On our midday tour, a guest asked us, as the Ribeira Brava drove faster, if we had a destination, a goal we are moving towards? In fact, that was the case because we wanted to reach the distant Atlantic Spotted…
31.08.2018 – Dolphin co-occurrences
Today we found an interesting situation out on the ocean: there were Short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) closely accompanied by Short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus). Occasionally, we find different combinations of cetacean species hanging out in close vicinity to each…