Amazing Azores- Alex Meyer- July 2025
Please enjoy this epic week-long trip to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean via The Azores. Our group, which included some of mammalwatching’s finest, saw 15 mammal species with 13 different Cetaceans, including: Northern Bottlenose Whale, Sowerby’s Beaked Whale, Pygmy & Dwarf Sperm Whales and False Killer Whale. Amazing Azores indeed!
I’ve aimed to make a very interactive report with lots of clickable links and underwater photos, so keep an eye out for those! It’s ideal for widescreen monitors so turn your phone for optimal viewing experience. All GoPro screenshots are from footage taken by Jonathan Ben Simon’s (unless otherwise noted.)
Without further adieu here is the report:
Amazing Azores- Alex Meyer- July 2025
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8 Comments
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JanEbr
I liked the trip, in particular because of the spectacular company. I have never before been on a trip with other mammalwatchers and it’s a really huge difference!
But I feel the need to counterbalance the enthusiasm for Espaco Talassa with my signature grumpiness. Yes, the staff that we had was all nice people, who were clearly interested in the whales, skilled and knowledgeable – but I am still completely puzzled by their behavior towards us. Even though we chartered our own boat with only us on board, they still insisted on treating us basically like cargo. They repeatedly withheld information – often they wouldn’t even tell us where are we going and getting clear answers to “what else has been spotted” was routinely a fight. On several occasions they insisted on following species that we were not interested in. I could understand this completely if we were on a mixed boat – letting some “normal people” have their experienced ruined by the wishes of hardcore mammalwatchers would surely be a PR disaster for the company – but in our setup it made absolutely zero sense. If we wanted to watch glimpses of beaked whales for days on end, where is the harm for anyone?
Oftentimes when I complain about me not liking guided tours, people tell me that it’s because I only take cheap guides when I absolutely have to – well, Espaco Talassa is literally one of the most liked outfits in the world, so I would say that’s not it. I am clearly just not made for this.
I still love whalewatching though, so I am now looking into learning to operate small boats and getting papers that would allow me to rent them when needed. I don’t see how that could ever go badly 🙂
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giant eland
Ahh ornery Jan lol. I do agree with some of your points, but “cargo” is a bit extreme haha. They did sometimes withhold information on what the spotters were seeing. I totally didn’t mind when it was to keep us in suspense and then surprise us with our first Sowerby’s or Bottlenose Whales. But I recall one time we realized after the fact there had been another Kogia sighting, but they determined we were too far to go for it (and the spotters never found it again). After that, I felt the need to check in more often to make sure we weren’t missing anything (which wasn’t always received well.) I would’ve definitely preferred to be given information as it came in and save myself this type of stress.
Ultimately I did feel like we got to investigate every beaked whale the spotters found to rule out any new species – which was a great feeling and exactly what I was hoping for. Having 2 species of both beaked whale and kogia spread out across 7/10 trips felt like we were doing something right.
Happy to hear you liked our company at least haha! And you’re welcome for all these new mammal families 😉
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Vsevolod Rudyi
Thanks for putting this together, Alex! This was one of the best wildlife trips in my life, great to re-live it all again 🙂