CSR_14 (August, 15th- 21st)

What a week in the Pelagos Sanctuary! Let’s start from the mere numbers: 5 days spent out at sea, 650 km travelled, 82 hours spent searching the animals and a total of 27 sightings recorded. But even if, as Nathanael West said, “numbers constitute the only universal language”, they can not express at all the uniqueness of the 14th week spend on board of the Pelagos R/V. We travelled all the way back and forth to Corsica Island, spend some time in the amazing bays of Calvi and Girolata and admired the brightness of the milky way during the night navigation. A pod of 5 sperm whales engaging in social surface activity gave us the best “Welcome to Corsica” we could ever expect; two pods of long-finned pilot whales, hundreds of striped dolphins and, finally, fin whales accompanied us during the crossing of the Ligurian Sea. Last but not least, a pod of bottlenose dolphins with a small newborn was just waiting for us a few meters out of the port of Sanremo. Then loggerhead turtles, giant devil ray fishes, a blue shark and finally a swim with an ocean sun fish.
After such a great and unique experience there isn’t that much left to say and we certainly agree with T.T. Williams who said “To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from".

Alessandra, Giulia, Claudio and Nino

Following link is for participants of this week's expedition, showing the ship's route, pictures of some of the sightings and of some moments of the cruise which were memorable (or even not so...)

Ai partecipanti al turno è dedicato uno spazio con il percorso effettuato durante la settimana, le foto di alcuni avvistamenti e qualche immagine dei momenti da ricordare - importanti e non.