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August 23, 2009

Voyage to the Canary Islands. August 20-23, 2009

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©OCEANA/ Carlos Minguell

 

The voyage aboard the Oceana Ranger has been stupendous. We sailed the whole way with sails, and we took advantage of the force 5 or 6 NW and NE winds. First we passed the underwater mountains of Dacia and Concepción with the idea in mind of making some submersions with the ROV. However, in spite of the fact that sea and weather conditions have been good for sailing, the wind and some waves reaching up to 3 meters did not allow us to work with the ROV.

So… we continued on our course. We have been left no other choice than to leave these banks for another time throughout the campaign.

Of course, even though we were not able to document the animal life on this ocean bottom, surrounding the mountains, we saw a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), another group of striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) and another group of Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis), besides a turtle, many North Atlantic great shearwater (Calonectris diomedea), the odd European petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus) and a shark. We were unable to identify this shark, but it appeared to belong to the genus Carcharhinus.