We had a stellar year this year in the Azores–so many sightings! Even though the seas were quite rough the animals came out in record numbers for us. Some days it was all we could do to keep up with the sightings and the paperwork–I guess that’s a good thing.

Here are the  final stats for all three groups combined:

Bottlenose dolphins – 8 encounters totalling 60 animals
Common dolphins – 62 encounters totalling 1429 animals
Risso’s dolphins – 8 encounter totalling 82 animals
Fin whales – 20 encounters totalling 36 animals
Sei whales – 21 encounters totalling 37 animals
Blue whales – 19 encounters totalling 25 animals
Humpback whales – 5 encounters with 5 individuals
Sperm whales – 91 encounters totalling 276 animals

and

Loggerhead turtles – 11 encounters with 11 individuals
Leatherback turtles – 1 encounter with 1 individual

Once again it was a privilege for me to work alongside scientist Lisa Steiner and our volunteers. AND I got to work alongside three other Biosphere leaders-in-training, and it was really great to meet other crazy people like me.

I just got an email from Sebastian Klin, and he sent me some pictures I’ll share here. These are all his:

 

Now for the truly spectacular: How often are you out observing whales or whale watching and look up and see one coming at you with its mouth open?

 

Want to see what we do? Here’s a day’s work:

Here are a couple of Sebastian’s nice pictures of our base came in Horta:

 

That’s it for the 2014 Biosphere Expeditions Azores expedition.
See you next year?