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The ocean around São Jorge is fantastic. The clear blue
water and the views on the beautiful green mountains of the
islands are spectacular. From Pico (Lajes) you can make a
whale watch trip (3 hours) with a professional organization.
We make trips approximately 10 trips a year around one of
the islands São Jorge, Pico and Faial. Unfortunately we are
not allowed to invite guests on our boat, unless they are
friends or family. We only use our boat when the sun shines
and the sea is flat. Then you see dolphins and whales much
better.
Film of dolphins under water
5 MB - 39 seconden
Often we see large groups of dolphins, sometimes in large
groups of hundreds of animals.Mostly we see spotted dolphins,
common dolphins, and bottlenose dolphins. With some of these
groups you can swim, but every group react different on
humans. Sometimes they make clear that they do not like our
presence by swimming away immediately. Or they form a ball
of dolphins underneath you as a defense. Then we leave them
in peace. But most of the time dolphins are curious and rush
to the boat as soon as they spot us. As long as the boat has some speed they come from far to
swim along. They clearly enjoy this. You can have close eye
contact with them. Sometimes a year we meet striped dolphins,
which are rather shy, pilot whales and risso’s dolphins.
Film
common dolphin
11 MB - 21 seconden
In august 2008 we saw a sperm whale nearby the boat,
making four jumps out of the water. In 2009 we met sperm whales during five
trips.Sometimes we saw groups
of sperm whales with up to 12 animals of different ages.
They were very relaxed and did not seem to be bothered by us.
In previous years we saw a large group with around 50 false
orcas and a jumping North Atlantic bottlenose whale (14 m
long). Almost every year we meet fin whales, sometimes 24
meters long.
Film Risso's
4 MB - 30 seconden
Film grienden
38 MB - 44 seconden
Also from the coast you often can see dolphins and whales
from our guesthouse. We saw groups
of sperm whales passing by and three times we saw orcas, of
which one attacked a group of dolphins.
Film
sperm whales
24 MB - 34 seconden
Regularly we see sea turtles, white sharks, hammer sharks,
tuna and other large fish, and flying fish.
Film fin whale
7 MB - 12 seconden |
