Head out to a whale a lookout on the cliff has already found

São Miguel kept its whale lookouts. The vigias are small huts on high ground above the sea, built so a man with a telescope could spot sperm whales and signal the island's whalers, with rockets, when one came up. The hunting ended in the 1980s. The lookouts stayed and changed sides: the same huts now guide the whale-watching boats by radio.

The boat leaves from Ponta Delgada for about three hours at sea, with a marine biologist on board. Somewhere above the coast a watcher has been at the binoculars since first light, and at some point the skipper's radio says where to go.

What comes up depends on the month. In spring the big baleen whales pass the island on their way north: fin, sei, and now and then a blue. By September it is more often sperm whales and big groups of dolphins. Common dolphins live in these waters all year and tend to turn up for everyone. If the sea shows nothing, the group goes out again later in the week.