Gordon’s quote of the day was “there were too many flukes to count!” We encountered several groups of sperm whales in the morning and went from group-to-group-to-group for the entire day. At one point there were as many as sixteen whales at the surface, and seven of them fluked almost simultaneously. Then the rest fluked and we got several excellent identification pictures. There were three large males in the group that made the adult females they swam with look live calves. Further, at the debriefing we identified seventeen unique flukes in a single day, which is a Biosphere record for the Azores. Needless to say our scientist Lisa was ecstatic.
Branko was out team photographer for the day, and he took the whale tail that we’ll all use for our screensavers. Sabine was our super spotter of the unique and wondrous, and managed to see a palm-sized loggerhead turtle, several types of phytoplankton, and a floating egg sack. Be sure to ask her about the sea snake. 🙂 Several team members also saw a shark flash by the side of the boat. Add common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, and some Rissos dolphins, and we call it a stellar day.
Update from our volunteer vacation / conservation holiday protecting whales, dolphins and turtles around the Azores archipelago
Biosphere Expeditions: blogs from the frontline of wildlife conservation and the fight for a more sustainable planet 
Amazing pictures. A special “Hello” to team #2 member Margot – sure hope you are not a fish feeder. Can’t wait to hear your adventure tales.