oceans

A group of 200 Spinner Dolphins on the way out of the channel. Spinners pass into the atolls during the day, returning to feed at night. A good place to go snorkelling in the morning...good chance of a close pass with groups, though they tended to stay their distance from swimmers.

Followed a Blue Whale at distance for about 2 hours (it was travelleing at an incredible speed). On every occasion the animal fluked up before diving. Fantastic!

A beaked whale was seen in the afternoon but not identified. It was observed surfacing several times and had no obvious scarring and dark chocolate brown in colour. It was quite thick-set with a short triangular dorsal fin. A small beak was evident and did not appear to be "goose-beaked". There was a reduced pale area on the forehead but no other obvious markings.

About 15 Spinner Dolphins were present in the channel and watched underwater whilst snorkelling.

By all accounts a pretty amazing day for cetaceans. It started with a group of 15-20 Spinner Dolphins at the reef as we left at dawn, swimming slowly along the outside of the reef, followed by a group of Bottlenose Dolphins just beyond. Later in the day we stopped to watch about 15 Short-finned Pilot Whales that milled around the vessel and spy-hopped for about an hour. Two Dwarf Sperm Whales were the first for this trip (a Maldives speciality, particularly easy to see here but otherwise very rarely reported at sea). A futher 3 Short-finned Pilot Whales were seen during the day, along with a group of about 150 "offshore" type Bottlenose Dolphins.

A quiet morning was interrupted when we encountered a massive group of Risso's Dolphins. The first fully identified beaked whales of the trip were a pod of five Blainville's Beaked Whales that approached to within a reasonable distance. Scope views enabled the high arched jawline to be seen, along with barnacles growing off the teeth erupting out of the lower-jaw of a male's heavily and deeply scarred head. In ideal conditions, three more Dwarf Sperm Whales were seen and a group of about 50 Spinner Dolphins late in the afternoon. A single Audubon's Shearwater was a birding highlight for the day.

Two groups totalling about 50 Spinner Dolphins were present in the atoll, along with about 35 Bottlenose Dolphins as we exited the reef. A further four Dwarf Sperm Whales were seen in two groups of two (they are often found in pairs) and again, we found Risso's Dolphins in large numbers (about 125). A new species for the trip came in the form of Cuvier's Beaked Whale - a mother and calf seen reasonably well. During the day we saw several Dolphin Fish, Sail Fish and Saunder's Terns.

Towards the end of the day we saw about another 200 Spinner Dolphins in one pod near the reef.

Small groups of Spinner Dolphins were seen on the way out of the reef, followed by four Risso's Dolphins. During the day two unidentified beaked whales were seen before great views again of Blainville's Beaked Whales: a group of 7-8 individuals. Eight Striped Dolphins were the first for this trip. 

Continued great weather conditions saw another pair of Dwarf Sperm Whales detected. According to Chas Anderson, over 90% of detections are in Beaufort 0-1 and none have been seen in Beaufort 3+. Nevertheless, one in six sightings in the Maldives is this species, so they must be quite abundant.

A group of about 50 Striped Dolphins was a welcome addition to yesterday's sighting. Finally also, great views of a bull male Cuvier's Beaked Whale - a brick red colour with white head and noticeably "goose-beaked". Two other beaked whales about 10 minutes later were almost certainly the same species.

The final sighting of the trip was a group of 60 Bottlenose Dolphins on return back into Male.