Breaching Manta Ray - whatever next !

The weather was pretty good and we battered up north of Ponto do Sol for a "furthest north". At one point I thought I saw the mountains of Sao Nicolau in the distance but it must have been the swell.  We made good progress to a breaching whale which was also pec slapping and when we arrived found two adult whales.  They gave us the run around but eventually we obtained good dorsal fin images and one fluke shot. The fluking whale was well known but had a reputation of being evasive and the second whale was a new one but both were candidates for biopsy sampling. Unfortunately as we tried to get close enough we never managed to get samples despite some hopeful long distance shots.  Good news is the crossbow worked after our home-made fix yesterday.  

The fixed crossbow with foot strap cut and fashioned into two braces

In the afternoon we located the same two whales again but they had two whalewatching vessels with them and we still very evasive having been harrassed for hours at this stage.  One more distant blow in the afternoon but no sightings, images or biopsies.

Breaching Manta Ray (upside down) (Darren Craig)

In the morning we did have a lovely encounter with around 12-15 rough-toothed dolphin swhich seemed to follow the whales and Darren got an image of a breaching Manta Ray on its second breach - great shot Darren ! Maybe tommorrow we will have better luck with the whales - we need it !!

Simon Berrow