Azores : Blue birthday

Update from our marine conservation volunteering holiday in the Azores archipelago, working on whales, dolphins and turtles

The expedition started a bit late as incoming flights were re-routed due to strong winds. The team – in true expedition style – took it all in its stride, with the normal project briefings, presentations and equipment training completed in the first couple of days. The inclement weather conditions have continued, meaning our first day at sea was delayed until Thursday.

This also coincided with Anne’s birthday, and when asked what she would like, she requested a blue whale! Unfortunately, the challenging conditions, rising to force 5-6, meant a brief encounter with common dolphins and a rare encounter with orcas. Not what anyone expected on the first day at sea – nor did we expect what followed.

Our next encounter was indeed a blue whale, followed by a fin whale, and so the afternoon continued … with multiple blue and fin whale encounters, with two blue whales fluking! This was punctuated by a large group of bottlenose dolphins and false killer whales. Well worth the effort, as the sea state meant just staying upright was an achievement. The team did fantastically on the data recording, and initial review of the imagery suggests at least four blue whale individuals were located – we will just have to wait on any ID matches.

So, apologies, Anne, for not delivering ‘a’ blue whale, but well worth the effort of the past few of days. Also huge thanks to the local vigias (lookouts) who assist us in finding many of our quarry. A fantastic start to the 2025 data collection and the bar has been set high!

Update from our marine conservation volunteering holiday in the Azores archipelago, working on whales, dolphins and turtles