After hearing reports of Fin whale sightings from some of the other Arc Rally boats north of us, we finally had a chance, actually several chances throughout today to see the behemoths ourselves. It was quite exciting. These are extremely large whales, second in size to the Blue whales. They are recognized by the tiny little fin on the back half.
We first noticed them as they came to the surface and blew out a plume of water and air. They then broke the surface as they swam gently by. They are gentle giants heading slowly south west as we are headed equally slowly north east.
In each sighting we saw several whales, or a pod, that were moving along together.
To save you the effort of googling fin whale, I did it for you:
The fin whale, also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is a cetacean belonging to the parvorder of baleen whales. It is the second-longest species of cetacean on Earth after the blue whale. Wikipedia
On one of the sightings as we were admiring the whales, a pod of dolphins came roaring over and were playing around the front of Sea Dog. Its like they were saying, whales, big deal, what about us, look at us...
Along with whales, dolphins and Man-o-War jellyfish, the fishing has been pretty good for some of the catamarans that have been fishing. The catch so far are a couple types of tuna, a couple of wahoo (aka Ono in Hawaii) and some smaller fish. Sadly they are nowhere near us, hopefully they will share the bounty in the Azores. One of the tuna was HUGE, at least 5.5 feet long. One of the female crew on the boat laid down on the deck next to the fish to give a perspective of its actual size. They reported they took several hours to land the fish... Incredible.
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