“There it is!”
The cry came just in time for me to catch sight of the fin breaking the water and silently parting it like a blade through cream. The bottle-nosed dolphin slowly glided forward, its sleek back glistening in the sun. Then it was gone. We waited, eyes frantically scanning the horizon where the fin had disappeared. Nothing.

Suddenly there was a splash and there it was, right beside the hull of the boat, just inches from where I stood. There was a uniform cry of excitement from the boat’s occupants and a dozen arms thrust mobile cameras seaward as the dolphin played in the clear waters for our entertainment.

Home to a large community of bottle-nosed dolphins and host to up to 27 species of whales and dolphins on migratory routes, the still, warm waters off the west coast of Tenerife are some of the best waters in the world for spotting cetaceans.
I was on board the beautiful ‘Katrin’, a former North Sea crabber and one of many boats that operate from the pretty marina of Los Gigantes and fly the ‘Barco Azul’ flag which shows that they’re operating within recommended guidelines which work to protect the cetaceans.

Along with the 16 other passengers there were two volunteers from the Atlantic Whale Foundation who were collecting statistics which help to build a picture of the pods that frequent the waters and those that are migratory. Although they were students on short term summer placements, they told me that the volunteers who have worked with the Foundation for longer can actually identify individual dolphins from the markings on their fins. Clearly this must take practice as I was still ‘getting my eye in’ to be able to spot a fin at all, let alone who it belonged to.

Seeing these beautiful creatures in their natural environment is a real ‘wow’ experience and doing it in a setting as attractive as the clear waters that surround the foot of the ‘giants’ from which Los Gigantes takes its name, is really just the icing on the cake.

Photo provided by The Atlantic Whale Foundation