Pico 2010

We enjoyed Pico so much in 2008 and 2009 that we decided to come back. Again, we booked with Archipelago Azores. Our car for the week was Fergie, a Ford Focus. It was definitely a good idea to go for one grade higher - he coped with the hills a lot better than the cars we'd had in earlier years.

Warning - there are a lot of whale and dolphin pictures. We went to whale watch and that is what we did most of the time. There are some photos here and there of non marine life (especially on Tuesday) but you have to look carefully to find them!

We stayed at Pocinho Bay again. We stayed here last year and it is a beautiful place on the west side of the island. It isn't far from the capital, Madalena, and is brilliant for sunset watching. Our hosts were lovely, our stone cottage very comfy (as was the guest lounge, especially the hammocks), breakfast was great and the 14 acres of grounds beautiful to walk around so a great success. There are quite a few pictures on our Pico 2009 page if you'd like to take a look. I've also added a few pictures taken this year (couldn't resist a walk round with my camera one sunny morning!)

We arrived on the Sunday and went straight to Espaco Talassa for whale watching - much better than last year, warmer and a calmer sea so off we went.

Our first trip of the holiday and we saw Pilot Whales, Sperm Whales (with calf), Common Dolphin, Bottlenosed Dolphin and, something we'd never seen before (especially that close up) - a Moonfish. Apparently the rest of the world call them Moonfish - we English call them Sunfish for some reason or other.

Moonfish eat Portuguese Men o' War (Medusa). Medusas are very poisonous to humans (long tentacles) but perhaps Moonfish like something spicy for their tea?

It was huge. Most of it was underwater so bit hard to photograph but the next few photos will give you an idea.

Moonfish eating Medusa

... and this pretty thing is what Moonfish like to eat! This photo was taken on Wednesday when the sea was much calmer than on Sunday. You can't see the dangerous tentacles lurking beneath the surface.

The Pilot Whales were behaving very strangely - far more active than we've seen them before and in smaller groups. They usually just hang around in big pods but these were whizzing along

This is the nearest we got to a Pilot Whale tale - see bottom right of picture on the right!

The Sperm Whales had a baby with them who was very curious. When the female adults dived, he was left on the surface (too young to dive) but I dare say another female wouldn't have been far away to keep an eye on him. In the meantime, he did some people watching (aka spy hopping).

Baby Sperm Whale Spy Hopping

Sperm Whale - what a pity these 2 females didn't fluke at the same time

Sperm Whale (my favourite picture from Sunday!)

Spending so much time on the water, we see the island from the sea more than any other island view. We also see various pretty cloud formations during the course of the trips.

Pico - the mountain (volcano) that gives the island its name - will we ever see all of it without any cloud around it?

There are lots of small villages scattered about on the hillside - makes the view from the sea very pretty.

The usual bird life was around (especially Cory's Shearwaters and Seagulls). They were flying high then skimming the water, looking for food.

Monday morning brought the rain so no whale watching until 4 p.m. What a hard life, leisurely breakfast, relaxing time reading our books, yummy lunch and then out on a boat!

The stars today were the Flying Fish (no photos as far too fast) and Risso's Dolphins. They get whiter as they get older and they were more active than we've seen them before - possibly because the waves were a reasonable size!

Risso's Dolphin (my favourite picture from Monday)

Risso's Dolphin with plenty of battle scars

Sperm Whale - half hearted dive so not going too deep - just getting away from the humans

Sperm Whales (disguised as logs)

Sperm Whale spy hopping

The birds were much more active today - perhaps because we were out later so they were getting their tea before coming back to land for the night. Jonathon's favourite picture for today is the one on the left.

On the way into the harbour we came across a whaling boat. There is no whale hunting in the Azores but the traditional boats are used for racing.

Back to Pocinho and up to the sunset viewing point to watch the sun go down over the next door island.

Tuesday brought with it sunshine, warmth and a very calm sea. We saw both Common Dolphins and Sperm Whales on our trip this morning then decided to take advantage of the lovely clear weather and drive the long way home, over the back of the island to see some views, wild flowers and, of course, cows.

First, the marine life.....

Sperm Whale spy hopping

There was a whole family of Sperm Whales - we counted about 15 in the group which was lovely to see. The big male got fed up after a while and went to the bottom of the ocean to get away from them all!

The large group were generally socialising. First they'd swim in a line, then they formed a circle, disappeared under the water then one or two would pop their heads out and do some spy hopping to see if we were still around. Eventually we left them in peace to get on with life.

Sperm Whales spy hopping

Sperm Whale spy hopping

Sperm Whales - have the people gone yet?

The Common Dolphin were having a great time, splashing around even though there weren't that many of them.

Common Dolphin (and Jonathon's favourite Tuesday picture)

The Cory's Shearwaters were out and about as usual. Quite a few were sitting on the water, enjoying the warm weather. Jonathon even managed to get a nice picture of a Tern.

As I mentioned, we then took ourselves inland to see some green (and other colours). We were hoping the hydrangea hedges would be in flower. They don't survive on the top of the island but coming back down into the capital (Madalena) they were lovely, all different colours.

Plenty to see before we got to that part of the journey, with very green views ....

... and lots of wild flowers (many of which are similar to those we get in England).

There were lots of birds flitting about (far too fast for us) and the odd rabbit (also too fast) but we did manage to get a photo of a couple of birds that were soaring in the currents.

And finally (for today), the cows!

This is my favourite picture from Tuesday! He was most put out that Jonathon wanted to drive on his bit of the road - how dare he!

Wednesday and our boat trip was in the afternoon so we spent the morning at Pocinho Bay. The sun was lovely and warm so a stroll round the gardens with my camera was followed by a relaxing book read by the pool.

Even the birds seemed willing to have their photos taken on such a sunny day.

This blackbird had obviously had a bath somewhere and now it was time to fluff up, preen up and get ready for the day.

I had a willing helper in the form of Frida (left) and there were a load of gekkos around enjoying the sun on the volcanic rocks. Mathilde only came out after all the photo work had been done!

The way to breakfast

Our hut for the week

Back on the water in the afternoon and Jonathon was ready and waiting. We'd never seen the Atlantic so calm - like a millpond so a very easy ride.

In South Africa, the whale people reckon that if the sea is a bit rougher, the whales are a bit more active but the guys here say the sea makes no difference, the whales just do what they do. Different kinds of whales so maybe that's why?

Serge and his team are involved in research re turtles so when they see one, they take it out of the water (if it's not too fast for them - as 2 were today), measure it and tag it so they can track how long it stays in the Azores before swimming all the way back to Florida.

The first one Henry pulled out was quite small - too small to tag so we simply admired it and then it was put back in the sea. The second one they pulled out was much larger (see below left). It took both Henry and Pedro to hoik it out of the sea. The next one (left) was far too clever, allowed us a photo or two then dived away before he could be manhandled.

We saw a lot of Common Dolphin today, some more Risso's Dolphin and the big treat of the day was our very first sighting of Beaked Whales. They didn't come close to the boat at all but it was good to see a few of them swimming in the ocean.

Common Dolphin and Cory's Shearwater - my favourite Wednesday picture

As you can see, they were pretty lively and very good to watch as they performed their antics.

One of the best things about the calm sea was the fact that we could see the dolphins in the water rather than waiting for them to pop out to breathe

Gervais' Beaked Whale

The beaked whales are apparently very rare and nobody has managed to do much reasearch on them as they are seen so infrequently and are very shy. The usual Beaked Whales in this area are Sowerby Beaked Whales but these weren't that kind - these were identfied as Gervais' Beaked Whales - the first that Pedro had seen in the Azores so they must be unusual.

Gervais' Beaked Whale

Jonathon was a bit speedier today with his camera and managed to get a photo of a flying fish as it was whizzing along at the side of us.

Finally, for today, a few bird photos

Seagull coming in to land

Thursday's trip was in the morning so no leisurely breakfast today (leisurely lunch after the trip instead!). We saw more Risso's Dolphins today than ever before together with a few Bottlenosed Dolphins, a male Sperm Whale and yet more Beaked Whales - "Mesoplodon Densirostris" (A.K.A. Blainville's Beaked Whale or Dense-Beaked Whale). Again, a very rare species in this area so we felt very privileged.

Our guide for this trip was Joana. Joana is also responsible for the briefings before we go out - in Portuguese, English and French (at least!) with a smattering of German for the bird and whale names as required

The male Sperm Whale wasn't for hanging around. When he dived, Pedro (skipper) and Joana advised that he could be down for anything up to an hour and a half (we didn't wait around for him to come back up!)

The males are about one third as big again as the females - so, huge in other words!

Blainville's Beaked Whale

I don't really have a favourite picture from Thursday. Seeing a fluke (tail) is always great and seeing the Blainville's Beaked Whale was a real treat but none of my photos really stood out so no "winner" today.

With Friday came the rain (or, rather, drizzle) but we set off on the basis that no-one had phoned to say the trip was cancelled and it was our last day so we didn't want to miss a trip if it was possible to go out.

You can see from the photo on the left that the cloud was low - this was all we could see of the island for the first hour or so of the trip. After that it got better and was promising to be a lovely, sunny afternoon by the time we came back in.

We were spoilt for animals on this trip - Sperm Whales, Pilot Whales, Bottlenosed Dolphin, Common Dolphin and a few far away Risso's Dolphin. We saw more flukes than we'd seen all week - Joana told us she thought the Sperm Whales were gathering for socialising in the afternoon. Apparently, the giant squid (staple diet of Sperm Whales) do a bit of a vertical migration when it's a full moon so the Sperm Whale don't have to dive as far for them and therefore have more time to socialise!

The Bottlenosed Dolphin and the Pilot Whales seemed to be happily swimming together which was a bit of a surprise, not least as both groups had babies with them.

Bottlenosed Dolphin with Baby - my favourite Friday photo

Pilot Whale with Baby

The Common Dolphin were full of mischief - bow riding and having a great time splashing about. They were very close to the boat, hence the next photo

One last look at some birds before we sign out for another holiday. Jonathon's favourite photo from Friday is the larger of the Cory's Shearwaters below.

Finally, Pico is hiding behind these clouds but, as you can see, the sea and sky are bluer than when we set off (see Sperm Whale photos above). It might have been easier to say "Goodbye" if the weather had been miserable. Oh well, there's always next time!

P.S. - obviously somebody was listening because when we left Ponta Delgada for the flight home on the Saturday morning it was throwing it down!!!

Pico 2010
	We enjoyed Pico so much in 2008 and 2009 that we decided to come back. Again, we booked with Archipelago Azores. Our car for the week was Fergie, a Ford Focus. It was definitely a good idea to go for one grade higher - he coped with the hills a lot better than the cars we'd had in earlier years. Warning - there are a lot of whale and dolphin pictures. We went to whale watch and that is what we did most of the time. There are some photos here and there of non marine life (especially on Tuesday) but you have to look carefully to find them!
We stayed at Pocinho Bay again. We stayed here last year and it is a beautiful place on the west side of the island. It isn't far from the capital, Madalena, and is brilliant for sunset watching. Our hosts were lovely, our stone cottage very comfy (as was the guest lounge, especially the hammocks), breakfast was great and the 14 acres of grounds beautiful to walk around so a great success. There are quite a few pictures on our Pico 2009 page if you'd like to take a look. I've also added a few pictures taken this year (couldn't resist a walk round with my camera one sunny morning!) We arrived on the Sunday and went straight to Espaco Talassa for whale watching - much better than last year, warmer and a calmer sea so off we went.
Common Dolphin		Common Dolphin
Our first trip of the holiday and we saw Pilot Whales, Sperm Whales (with calf), Common Dolphin, Bottlenosed Dolphin and, something we'd never seen before (especially that close up) - a Moonfish. Apparently the rest of the world call them Moonfish - we English call them Sunfish for some reason or other. Moonfish eat Portuguese Men o' War (Medusa). Medusas are very poisonous to humans (long tentacles) but perhaps Moonfish like something spicy for their tea? It was huge. Most of it was underwater so bit hard to photograph but the next few photos will give you an idea.

Moonfish eating Medusa	Moonfish eating Medusa	Moonfish
Moonfish		... and this pretty thing is what Moonfish like to eat! This photo was taken on Wednesday when the sea was much calmer than on Sunday. You can't see the dangerous tentacles lurking beneath the surface.
The Pilot Whales were behaving very strangely - far more active than we've seen them before and in smaller groups. They usually just hang around in big pods but these were whizzing along
Pilot Whale	Pilot Whale
Pilot Whale		Pilot Whale
This is the nearest we got to a Pilot Whale tale - see bottom right of picture on the right!
Pilot Whale	Pilot Whale
The Sperm Whales had a baby with them who was very curious. When the female adults dived, he was left on the surface (too young to dive) but I dare say another female wouldn't have been far away to keep an eye on him. In the meantime, he did some people watching (aka spy hopping).	Baby Sperm Whale Spy Hopping	Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale		Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale - what a pity these 2 females didn't fluke at the same time
Sperm Whale (my favourite picture from Sunday!)
Spending so much time on the water, we see the island from the sea more than any other island view. We also see various pretty cloud formations during the course of the trips.
	Pico - the mountain (volcano) that gives the island its name - will we ever see all of it without any cloud around it?
There are lots of small villages scattered about on the hillside - makes the view from the sea very pretty.
	The usual bird life was around (especially Cory's Shearwaters and Seagulls). They were flying high then skimming the water, looking for food.
Monday morning brought the rain so no whale watching until 4 p.m. What a hard life, leisurely breakfast, relaxing time reading our books, yummy lunch and then out on a boat!	Risso's Dolphin	The stars today were the Flying Fish (no photos as far too fast) and Risso's Dolphins. They get whiter as they get older and they were more active than we've seen them before - possibly because the waves were a reasonable size!
Risso's Dolphin	Risso's Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin (my favourite picture from Monday)
Risso's Dolphin		Risso's Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin	Risso's Dolphin with plenty of battle scars
Risso's Dolphin		We searched high and low for Sperm Whales today and only found some on our way home. We also managed to see a couple (literally) of Common Dolphins and a few Pilot Whales but they were further away than yesterday so I didn't take any photos. The Sperm Whales were just cruising along, not doing much at all. Again, 2 females and a calf - not sure whether the same as yesterday or not. One made a half hearted dive but no flukes today.
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale - half hearted dive so not going too deep - just getting away from the humans
Sperm Whales (disguised as logs)		Sperm Whale spy hopping
Sperm Whales
Cory's Shearwater	Cory's Shearwater	Cory's Shearwater
Cory's Shearwater	The birds were much more active today - perhaps because we were out later so they were getting their tea before coming back to land for the night. Jonathon's favourite picture for today is the one on the left.
On the way into the harbour we came across a whaling boat. There is no whale hunting in the Azores but the traditional boats are used for racing.
Back to Pocinho and up to the sunset viewing point to watch the sun go down over the next door island.

		Tuesday brought with it sunshine, warmth and a very calm sea. We saw both Common Dolphins and Sperm Whales on our trip this morning then decided to take advantage of the lovely clear weather and drive the long way home, over the back of the island to see some views, wild flowers and, of course, cows. First, the marine life.....
Sperm Whale spy hopping	There was a whole family of Sperm Whales - we counted about 15 in the group which was lovely to see. The big male got fed up after a while and went to the bottom of the ocean to get away from them all! The large group were generally socialising. First they'd swim in a line, then they formed a circle, disappeared under the water then one or two would pop their heads out and do some spy hopping to see if we were still around. Eventually we left them in peace to get on with life.	Male Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale Family
Sperm Whales spy hopping	Sperm Whale (male)	Sperm Whale spy hopping
Sperm Whales - have the people gone yet?
Common Dolphin	The Common Dolphin were having a great time, splashing around even though there weren't that many of them.	Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin	Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin (and Jonathon's favourite Tuesday picture)		The Cory's Shearwaters were out and about as usual. Quite a few were sitting on the water, enjoying the warm weather. Jonathon even managed to get a nice picture of a Tern.
Cory's Shearwater	Cory's Shearwater	Atlantic Tern
As I mentioned, we then took ourselves inland to see some green (and other colours). We were hoping the hydrangea hedges would be in flower. They don't survive on the top of the island but coming back down into the capital (Madalena) they were lovely, all different colours.

		Plenty to see before we got to that part of the journey, with very green views ....

		... and lots of wild flowers (many of which are similar to those we get in England).






It seems strange to see roses and hydrangeas growing wild when we make such a fuss about them at home - pruning and the like. Perhaps we should leave them to nature and see what happens (or perhaps when there are no tourists here, the people who live on Pico deal with them so they bloom beautifully year after year?)
There were lots of birds flitting about (far too fast for us) and the odd rabbit (also too fast) but we did manage to get a photo of a couple of birds that were soaring in the currents.
	And finally (for today), the cows!
This is my favourite picture from Tuesday! He was most put out that Jonathon wanted to drive on his bit of the road - how dare he!
	Wednesday and our boat trip was in the afternoon so we spent the morning at Pocinho Bay. The sun was lovely and warm so a stroll round the gardens with my camera was followed by a relaxing book read by the pool. Even the birds seemed willing to have their photos taken on such a sunny day.

This blackbird had obviously had a bath somewhere and now it was time to fluff up, preen up and get ready for the day.

I had a willing helper in the form of Frida (left) and there were a load of gekkos around enjoying the sun on the volcanic rocks. Mathilde only came out after all the photo work had been done!

The way to breakfast

		Our hut for the week




	Back on the water in the afternoon and Jonathon was ready and waiting. We'd never seen the Atlantic so calm - like a millpond so a very easy ride. In South Africa, the whale people reckon that if the sea is a bit rougher, the whales are a bit more active but the guys here say the sea makes no difference, the whales just do what they do. Different kinds of whales so maybe that's why?
Serge and his team are involved in research re turtles so when they see one, they take it out of the water (if it's not too fast for them - as 2 were today), measure it and tag it so they can track how long it stays in the Azores before swimming all the way back to Florida.
		The first one Henry pulled out was quite small - too small to tag so we simply admired it and then it was put back in the sea. The second one they pulled out was much larger (see below left). It took both Henry and Pedro to hoik it out of the sea. The next one (left) was far too clever, allowed us a photo or two then dived away before he could be manhandled.
	We saw a lot of Common Dolphin today, some more Risso's Dolphin and the big treat of the day was our very first sighting of Beaked Whales. They didn't come close to the boat at all but it was good to see a few of them swimming in the ocean.
Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin	Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin		Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin	Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin	Common Dolphin and Cory's Shearwater - my favourite Wednesday picture
Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin		As you can see, they were pretty lively and very good to watch as they performed their antics.
One of the best things about the calm sea was the fact that we could see the dolphins in the water rather than waiting for them to pop out to breathe	Common Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin		Risso's Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin	Risso's Dolphin
Gervais' Beaked Whale	The beaked whales are apparently very rare and nobody has managed to do much reasearch on them as they are seen so infrequently and are very shy. The usual Beaked Whales in this area are Sowerby Beaked Whales but these weren't that kind - these were identfied as Gervais' Beaked Whales - the first that Pedro had seen in the Azores so they must be unusual.
Gervais' Beaked Whale		Gervais' Beaked Whale
Gervais' Beaked Whale	Gervais' Beaked Whale
Jonathon was a bit speedier today with his camera and managed to get a photo of a flying fish as it was whizzing along at the side of us.		Finally, for today, a few bird photos
Seagull coming in to land	Seagull	Atlantic Tern
Atlantic Tern	Atlantic Tern	Thursday's trip was in the morning so no leisurely breakfast today (leisurely lunch after the trip instead!). We saw more Risso's Dolphins today than ever before together with a few Bottlenosed Dolphins, a male Sperm Whale and yet more Beaked Whales - "Mesoplodon Densirostris" (A.K.A. Blainville's Beaked Whale or Dense-Beaked Whale). Again, a very rare species in this area so we felt very privileged.
Risso's Dolphin	Risso's Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin		Risso's Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin
Risso's Dolphin	Our guide for this trip was Joana. Joana is also responsible for the briefings before we go out - in Portuguese, English and French (at least!) with a smattering of German for the bird and whale names as required
Risso's Dolphin		The male Sperm Whale wasn't for hanging around. When he dived, Pedro (skipper) and Joana advised that he could be down for anything up to an hour and a half (we didn't wait around for him to come back up!) The males are about one third as big again as the females - so, huge in other words!
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale
Blainville's Beaked Whale		Blainville's Beaked Whale
I don't really have a favourite picture from Thursday. Seeing a fluke (tail) is always great and seeing the Blainville's Beaked Whale was a real treat but none of my photos really stood out so no "winner" today.
	With Friday came the rain (or, rather, drizzle) but we set off on the basis that no-one had phoned to say the trip was cancelled and it was our last day so we didn't want to miss a trip if it was possible to go out. You can see from the photo on the left that the cloud was low - this was all we could see of the island for the first hour or so of the trip. After that it got better and was promising to be a lovely, sunny afternoon by the time we came back in.	Sperm Whale
We were spoilt for animals on this trip - Sperm Whales, Pilot Whales, Bottlenosed Dolphin, Common Dolphin and a few far away Risso's Dolphin. We saw more flukes than we'd seen all week - Joana told us she thought the Sperm Whales were gathering for socialising in the afternoon. Apparently, the giant squid (staple diet of Sperm Whales) do a bit of a vertical migration when it's a full moon so the Sperm Whale don't have to dive as far for them and therefore have more time to socialise!	Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale		Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale		Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale	Sperm Whale
Sperm Whale		The Bottlenosed Dolphin and the Pilot Whales seemed to be happily swimming together which was a bit of a surprise, not least as both groups had babies with them.
Bottlenosed Dolphin with Baby - my favourite Friday photo		Bottlenosed Dolphin
Bottlenosed Dolphin
Bottlenosed Dolphin	Bottlenosed Dolphin
Bottlenosed Dolphin	Bottlenosed Dolphin	Bottlenosed Dolphin
Bottlenosed Dolphin	Pilot Whale	Pilot Whale
Pilot Whale with Baby	Pilot Whale
Baby Pilot Whale	Pilot Whale	The Common Dolphin were full of mischief - bow riding and having a great time splashing about. They were very close to the boat, hence the next photo
Common Dolphin		Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin	Common Dolphin
Common Dolphin		Common Dolphin
Atlantic Tern	One last look at some birds before we sign out for another holiday. Jonathon's favourite photo from Friday is the larger of the Cory's Shearwaters below.
Cory's Shearwater		Cory's Shearwater
Finally, Pico is hiding behind these clouds but, as you can see, the sea and sky are bluer than when we set off (see Sperm Whale photos above). It might have been easier to say "Goodbye" if the weather had been miserable. Oh well, there's always next time! P.S. - obviously somebody was listening because when we left Ponta Delgada for the flight home on the Saturday morning it was throwing it down!!!
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