As it happens the pilot whales favour depths that far exceed recreational dive limits, as their favourite prey is giant squid. Also they blow bubbles as part of their communication repertoire, thought to signal aggressive or warning behaviour. They might not take too kindly to having a group of divers blowing bubbles at them! So maybe it’s for the best that we stick to the excursion.

Most of the pilot whales we see around Tenerife are similar in size to dolphins, ie 2-3 metres.

Dophins are much more unpredictable in their whereabouts and we see pods of them on on the surface on a fairly regular basis but rarely whilst diving. Sometimes they are playful, breaching in the wake of the boat, for example, but sometimes they are just not feeling sociable and disappear as soon as we spot them.

The species we see most regularly are the common and bottlenose, but there is also a small resident pod of Risso’s dolphins here which we were lucky enough to spot in April 2009 (see our Diving News).

The bottlenose seen around Tenerife usually grows to 2-3 metres, is grey in colour and has the distinctive snout so familiar to us all. It has a more flexible neck than other species as 5 of its 7 vertebrae are not fused together as in other species. (You can see that our picture of the Risso dolphin shows a much straighter-backed profile than the typical picture of a common dolphin). Its diet is a mix of fish, eels, squid and shrimp, which it swallows whole. No messing about!

Risso´s dolphins are normally grey/brown as juveniles, acquiring more white patches as they mature. The tail splashing and waving that one dolphin was displaying when we spotted a pod is typical for this species.