Whale Watching in Tenerife: Your Perfect Antidote to Busy Beaches

Whale Watching in Tenerife

For some reason, we often associate with whale watching with far flung destinations or long ocean voyages. But it's perfectly possible, indeed highly likely, to be able to go whale watching in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, not far from the shore.

Here we talk about whale watching in Tenerife: what it's like and how you can do it too.

What It's Like To Go Whale Watching in Tenerife

Pedro Martina’s sun-worn face lights up as he grabs my shoulder and points into the distance.

“Three of them are under the water now,” he says as I scour the shades of blue. “One baby and two adultos... and further behind them I can see two more.”

A Different Kind of Whale Hunting in Tenerife

It’s certainly not the first time Pedro has hunted whales, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him. Despite a seafaring tradition of more than three generations plus hauling tourists along the waves every day, he still wears that expression of childlike wonder.

He’s right, of course, and I stare, mesmerized as sleek-skinned pilot whales rise out of the water. At first glance, they look like giant dolphins, with their glistening dorsal fins, curved leaps and semi-wicked glints in their eyes. Water falls off them like diamonds, yet their chunky body shape suggests that someone got their proportions wrong.

It’s only when we find a school of dolphins half an hour later that the difference becomes clear.

What's the Difference Between Pilot Whales and Dolphins?

Dolphins are sprightlier, bouncier, faster. They are also much, much smaller.

Pilot Whales, I learn, are 6 metres long at birth and can grow to weigh 3 tons. In a happy change from many whale-related stories, they are not critically endangered, nor even under threat.

The same cannot be said for the fishing business that Pedro grew up with in Puerto de Santiago.

Endangered Fishermen and a Family Tradition

His grandfather practiced line-caught tuna fishing, a dolphin-friendly but backbreaking method of heaving the hulk of a tuna fish onto a small boat by means of a single line. Days started at four in the morning and drove on until eight at night for all but two months of the year. Now that tradition has gone.

“Contamination,” says Pedro, when I ask. “And trawler nets.”

Changing Times in Tenerife

We both gaze across the perfect sky and cliffs that frame the Atlantic Ocean. Would Pedro have preferred to be a fisherman?

He pauses for a moment. “Fishing is hard work, very hard work. It is also very good for the body, good for the form.” He pats his stomach and bellows with laughter.

Seagulls swoop from overhead to snatch food from his crewmate’s outstretched hands.

“We have to change,” Pedro tells me. “Everything has to change. It is typical, it is life.”

He hands me a whale-watching certificate, smiles and then saunters down to encourage the seagulls.