• Departures normally scheduled on Fridays from 28th March to 2nd November.
• The itinerary may change depending on weather conditions, the presence and position of the animals and the physical aptitude or number of participants.
• Lunch in a small restaurant in São Jorge.
• The prices include VAT and taxes and are subject to change.
• The package is based on a minimum of 10 participants. If less than 10 the minimum charge will remain equivalent to that of 10 participants.

• Sea turtles, the most frequent are the Loggerhead (Caretta caretta), a lot more rare are the Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) and the Kemps (Lepidochelys kempiiL).
• The Cory’s Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea), Common tern (Sterna hirundo) and Roseate Tern (Sterna dougallii)… and more randomly Skuas (Stercorarius sp.) or Storm Petrels (Ocenites oceanicus).
• The shy shark like the Blue shark (Prionace glauca) or the Mako shark (Isurus oxyrhinchus).
• Some Portuguese Man-o-war (Physalia physalis), Sunfish (Mola mola) or flying fish (Exo­coetidae sp.), blue marlin (Makaira nigricans)… And may be the “swimming cow” (Bovi­nus aqua­ticus) of Topo Island. Don’t forget your binoculars!

By choosing Espaço Talassa, you choose to limit your ecological footprint.

• Espaço Talassa plants trees and contributes to a “micro-reserve” project as compensation for the ecological deficit and the CO2 emissions related to our whale watching activity, in collaboration with association “Quercus”.
• For each customer €0,50 cents will be donated towards the “Cabeço Santo” (GPS position: 40º31’52″N 8º20’36″W- Google Maps) reforestation project in the mountain range of Caramulo, victim of a terrible forest fire in 2005. Soon the indigenous vegetation will substitute eucalyptus, acacias and other infesters.

It’s true: “the sea is blue because forests are green”!

Where are the Azores?

• This is where Europe ends: 38 degrees North and 30 degrees West, some 800 nautical miles from the nearest coast, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The Azoreans, isolated for centuries, have survived on their resources of agriculture, fishing and…. whale hunting. Melville drew inspiration from such odysseys to write his epic tale, “Moby Dick”.
• For the last 30 years, it has been strictly prohibited to harm cetaceans in the Azores.
• The sperm whale prefers the south coast of Pico. Here, assisted by Marcel, the Queimada’s lookout, you can observe the whales and get close to them. The ambition of the project goes even further as it includes an introduction into other traces and vestiges of the whaling culture and tradition, of which the people of Lajes are the last witnesses.
• Last but not least these wildlife observation holidays, which respect both the animals and the local culture, are the natural way for Azoreans to continue to remain involved with whales long after the end of whale hunting in 1984. Whale watching offers an alternative way with whales for the Lajes community, and at the same time is an ideal way to protect the giants of the sea.
• To have a Wiki-idea about the Azores, please click here

Thanks to our look-out techniques from land, we don’t leave the harbour blindly. Each morning before embarking, a briefing is held during which we take into consideration the observations made by the lookout. The type of cetacean spotted, their groups, their distance from the harbour, the sea conditions, the number of animals in the group, and the absence or presence of smaller whales are all necessary factors in assessing the quality of forthcoming excursions.

See statistics since 1997

28 cetacean species frequent the Azores sea

In the interface of the North Atlantic, between “hot water” and “cold water”, the archipelago is without any doubt one of the best places for cetacean observation in the northern hemisphere. Also, because the islands are far away from the main merchant navy routes, recreational sailing has not yet made the carnage known in Continental Europe, and the large pollution emitters are relatively far off.

List of Cetacean of the Azores