Relax and adventure for a holiday immersed in nature
Imagine spending a week on a beautiful island located right in the middle of the North Atlantic,
dominated by a volcano that turns out to be the highest peak of Portugal.
Add to the mix the opportunity to make close encounters with the whales.
Is this enough?
Well, even if that was enough for you, we add to the mix the number one lifetime experience:
swimming with dolphins in their natural environment!
Believe it or not, Mount Pico (2351 metres) plays a major role at making Whale Watching outstanding
in the waters around Pico Island, by partially sheltering coastal waters from the wind.
In spring you can see the largest of all cetaceans:
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Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
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Fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus)
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Sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis)
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Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)
While present all year round, in the summer the legendary
Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) becomes the species we see most often
among large cetaceans.
As an official Whale Watch operator, CW Azores is allowed to put people in the water with 5 different species of dolphins,
4 of which can be see all year round:
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Common dolphin (Delphinus delphis)
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Bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
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Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus)
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Striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba)
A fifth, playful species join us sometime in June:
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Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis)
Our Whale Watching and Swim with Dolphins trips enjoy a success rate
greater than 97%, with the use of land-based lookouts contributing
massively to these amazing results.
Lenticular cloud on Mount Pico at night, photo by Enrico Villa