Whale and dolphin watching in Madeira: what you can see, month by month

The whale-watching season in Madeira is not a closed set of months. What changes is which species the research rates as more suitable, and that rating is a habitat model, not the odds for the morning you go. Every source linked here was open on 20 Oct 2026. No ticket price is copied.

The month windows are Fernandez and colleagues, 2021, from the Observatório Oceânico da Madeira group at ARDITI. The species account is the Museu da Baleia da Madeira page dated 19 August 2025. The binding rules are Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 15/2013/M in the Jornal Oficial. The harbour caps from the 2014 and 2015 portarias are in this guide.

Who is here all year, and who is passing

The museum’s species page says 28 cetacean species have been confirmed in the archipelago, often or occasionally: 7 baleen whales and 21 toothed whales and dolphins. Worldwide it counts about 78 species. It does not turn those two counts into a percentage.

On that page, toothed whales and dolphins use these waters to feed and to breed. Some have a seasonal stay. The example is the short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis). Others are there through the year. The example is the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). The great baleen whales use the seas on passage or seasonally, and some individuals stay for several months. Fin whales, Bryde’s whales, and sei whales have been seen feeding. Calves have been confirmed for the fin whale and the Bryde’s whale. The page does not give those three a month.

The 2013 regional law, in its preamble, said “more than twenty-four”. An ARDITI interview with Rita Ferreira, a biologist at the ocean observatory, says 29 species can be seen regularly or occasionally. The museum’s 28, the law’s “more than twenty-four”, and the interview’s 29 are three counts. This guide does not collapse them into one. Those two extra sentences were checked on 19 Oct 2026.

A photo-identification study of short-finned pilot whales, Alves and colleagues, 2013, using data from 2003 to 2011, found residents (resighted across intervals of up to 14 years), regular visitors, and transients. “Resident” in that paper is a site-fidelity class. It is not a claim that every pilot whale stays.

The museum’s technical study, using surveys and whale-watching records from 2010 to 2012 (and, for some questions, back to 2001), is more specific about the animals the boats actually meet. In that period, 86% of encounters logged by the maritime-tourism boats were five species: common dolphin, Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis), bottlenose dolphin, short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus), and Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni). Common dolphins were present above all in winter and spring. Spotted dolphins were present in summer and autumn. Bottlenose dolphins and short-finned pilot whales were in the coastal waters all year, which is why the boats recorded them more often than their abundance alone would suggest. The study treats some bottlenose dolphins and some pilot whales as resident or island-associated groups that use the south coast regularly, not as a claim that every animal of those species stays. PDF. Checked on 19 Oct 2026.

The ocean observatory’s photo-ID catalogues are for pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins, which the observatory calls among the most sighted, and which can be told apart by the nicks on the dorsal fin. The catalogues include photographs from crews and passengers. They are a research tool, not a timetable.

Alves and colleagues, 2018 used daily presence and absence from whale-watching boats: 7,551 daily sightings, 22 species, 3,527 surveyed days over 11 years (a mean of 321 days a year, SD 17). That coverage was 88% of the study period. The days without a survey were mainly rough weather. Cetaceans were recorded on 92% of the surveyed days. That is not 92% of calendar days, and not 92% of departures. A mean of 2.1 species was recorded per surveyed day (SD 1.2), and 8.2 per month (SD 2.0). At least nine species made up 96% of the sightings. The five with the highest mean occurrence rate were the Atlantic spotted dolphin, the bottlenose dolphin, the short-beaked common dolphin, Bryde’s whale (which that paper names Balaenoptera brydei), and the short-finned pilot whale.

The 2021 habitat paper is a different dataset: 8,607 sightings of 23 species, from 3,138 days between January 2003 and December 2018, on boats leaving Funchal and Calheta. It models the ten most sighted. It names Bryde’s whale Balaenoptera edeni. This guide does not merge that name with B. brydei.

Month by month

The 2021 models were trained mainly on the south coast and west of the Desertas. The authors say a suitability map is not a head-count, and that some months swing widely from year to year. “Higher” and “lower” below mean that, and nothing else.

Striped dolphins are present through the year in the same paper, with higher suitability from spring to early summer. Blainville’s beaked whales peak in summer and early autumn, with a high year-to-year spread from January to April. The paper does not name the months inside “spring”, “summer”, or “early autumn”, so those two species are not in the table or the selector.

The sentences behind the cells, all from Fernandez and colleagues, 2021:

• Bottlenose dolphin. Suitability sits in shallow coastal water, under 1,000 metres, and barely changes through the year. The authors cite earlier work that the species can be present all year, with no significant difference in the monthly encounter rate.
• Short-finned pilot whale. Lower suitability from March to July, and the standard deviation is high in March and April. The discussion places the higher values in late summer, autumn, and winter. The niche they describe prefers about 18–24°C and depths between 1,000 and 2,000 metres.
• Atlantic spotted dolphin. Higher suitability from June until October. February to May is the high year-to-year spread, not a second higher window.
• Short-beaked common dolphin. Higher suitability in winter and spring, from December to June, with a moderate standard deviation in June.
• Rough-toothed dolphin. Relatively high suitability from July to October. June and November are the high-spread months. The weekly sea-surface temperature in the model is linked to water above 20°C.
• Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera edeni in this paper). Suitability was relatively low, with a slight increase from June to January, and a high year-to-year spread from June to November.
• Fin whale. Elevated suitability from February to May. The standard deviation is high from February to August, so June, July, and August are variable months without being the elevated window.
• Sperm whale. Present through the year, with an apparent increase from June to November. A later sentence, about groups with calves, says June to December. Both sentences are in the paper. The table follows the first.

Pick a month

The selector repeats the table. It does not add a species, and it does not turn “higher” into a percentage.

Whale watching in Madeira in November

November is the gap between two dolphin windows in the 2021 models, and it is not an empty month.

The Atlantic spotted dolphin’s higher window ends in October. The common dolphin’s higher window opens in December. November is in neither. What the same models still place in November is the year-round bottlenose dolphin, the short-finned pilot whale (autumn is inside the higher period named in the discussion), and a Bryde’s whale still inside the June-to-January slight increase. June to November is also where that whale’s suitability varies most between years. Rough-toothed dolphins are in a high-spread month in November, not in their July-to-October higher window. Sperm whales are at the end of the June-to-November increase in the results section. Fin whales are not in their elevated window. That window is February to May.

On variety, the 2018 study found the mean number of species lower between October and March and higher between April and September. November sits in the lower band. The same study’s monthly mean was 8.2 species (SD 2.0), the low month was February at 6.1 (SD 1.3), and the high month was June at 10.4 (SD 1.6). It does not print a separate November mean, so this guide does not invent one.

The sea state for a November morning is not in these papers. The regulation does not set a wave-height limit for a departure. Whether the boat leaves is the operator’s call that morning.

None of the cetacean papers or the JORAM texts read for this guide publish a winter wave average, or a percentage of trips cancelled for weather. The museum study does say that, in 2010–2012, the boats generally worked all year, between 9:00 and 20:00, mostly from the south coast. That is a description of those years, not a forecast.

The sea state that is published, day by day, is the Funchal observatory bulletin from IPMA. Checked on 19 Oct 2026, the bulletin’s forecast for Monday 19 October 2026 was: south coast, waves under 1 metre; north coast, northwest waves of 1.5 to 2 metres, becoming northeast waves of 2 to 3 metres; sea temperature 22/23°C. The same file’s observation for Funchal at 09:00 UTC on 18 October 2026 was a south sea of 0.5 metres and 23.7°C. That is one October day, two lines, north and south. It is not a November or December normal. The PDF is replaced as the days move, so read it again on the morning you go.

Island weather for the colder months is in Madeira weather by month and winter weather. Plans for the rest of November are in Madeira in November.

The best time for dolphin watching

There is no single best time for dolphin watching in Madeira, because the dolphins do not share a calendar.

In the 2021 models, the best overlap for the two small dolphins is June: the spotted dolphin is inside June-to-October, and the common dolphin is still inside December-to-June, with a moderate year-to-year spread in that month. The bottlenose dolphin does not drop out. June is also the month with the highest mean species count in the 2018 study, 10.4. It is a poor month if the animal you want is the short-finned pilot whale: March to July is that species’ lower window.

If the animal is the Atlantic spotted dolphin, the higher window is June to October. If it is the common dolphin, the higher window is December to June. If it is the bottlenose dolphin, the models show almost no change across the twelve months. Rough-toothed dolphins are the late-summer case: relatively high from July to October.

“Best” here means a higher suitability value in one paper, or a higher species count in another. Neither figure is a promise that a boat will find that animal.

Where the boats leave, and how long they say they stay out

The 2021 paper collected sightings on commercial trips departing from two harbours, Calheta and Funchal, more than 30 km apart on the south coast. The 2018 paper’s author addresses name Marina do Funchal for Ventura and for Seaborn. This guide did not find a published duration for a Calheta departure in the sources opened for it, so none is given.

Two Funchal operators publish their own lengths. These are their pages, not a regional standard, and the 2013 regulation does not set a trip length.

• Ventura do Mar publishes a whale and dolphin tour of 2 hours 30 minutes, meeting at Marina do Funchal. The same page lists 09:30 and 13:00 from November to April, and adds 16:00 from May to October. The page says a trip can be changed, postponed, or cancelled for weather.
• VMT Madeira publishes a 3 hour catamaran trip, every day, 10:30 to 13:30 and/or 15:00 to 18:00, meeting at Avenida do Mar, Praça do Povo, Cais 8, Funchal.

Getting from Funchal to Calheta is the same decision as any other south-coast day. The car guide covers buses, taxis, and driving. It does not print a whale-watching timetable.

The IFCN legislation page, updated 16 February 2026, still lists Portaria n.º 46/2014 and Portaria n.º 13/2015 as the carrying-capacity rules, with the 2013 decree and Portaria n.º 97/2013. It does not list Decreto-Lei n.º 9/2006.

Portaria n.º 46/2014, as amended for two of the groups by Portaria n.º 13/2015:

The 2015 amendment changed only the first two rows (they had been 21 and 6). The north-coast row and Porto Santo were left as in the 2014 portaria. Each platform is limited to 3 trips a day. That sentence is Article 4 of the 2014 portaria, and the 2015 text does not rewrite it. A boat may occasionally work from another harbour only if those trips are not more than 10% of its operations, and the nature-park service is told beforehand. The IFCN legislation page, still listing these two portarias when checked on 19 Oct 2026, does not show a later amendment of those caps.

Article 3 of the 2014 portaria also draws an exclusion area of 1,021 km² where cetacean watching is not allowed, as a polygon of coordinates and an annex map. Open that map before you assume every bay is an operating area. This guide does not redraw it.

The IFCN requirements page, updated 29 May 2025, says the carrying capacity for observation at sea is currently full. That is about new authorisations against the caps above. It is not a statement that passenger places are sold out. The same page does not publish a directory of who holds an authorisation.

Where the research placed the boats, checked on 19 Oct 2026: the museum study says most boats left from Funchal, then Calheta and Caniçal, and less often Santa Cruz and Porto Santo. Caniçal is in the municipality of Machico, so it sits in the first row of the table above.

SIMplifica, on that IFCN page, is where an operator asks for an authorisation, a transfer of a licence to another boat, or the flags. It is not a ticket shop. The SIMplifica guide is about hiking permits.

The rules on the water

The binding text is the 2013 regional regulation, published in the Jornal Oficial on 14 May 2013 and in the Diário da República, 1st series, n.º 92, the same day. The decree says it enters into force 120 days after publication. The IFCN activity page says it entered into force on 12 September. Those are two sentences. This guide does not collapse them.

The regulation’s own name for the old voluntary code is the “Regulamento de Adesão Voluntária”: a non-binding code of conduct drawn up by the Whale Museum for how boats approach and accompany cetaceans. The preamble says most commercial operators had already joined such a code, and the museum study says the museum proposed it in 2003 and that it was the basis for the 2013 law. The law is what a boat has to follow now. The voluntary text is the history.

On an active approach the boat stays at least 50 metres from a marine mammal or a flock of seabirds, under the 2013 regulation. Closer than that, on purpose, is prohibited. If the animals come to the boat, the boat keeps its course and its speed. The approach is parallel and from behind, so the animals have 180 degrees clear in front of them. Between 300 and 100 metres the boat must not exceed 12 knots. Between 100 and 50 metres, 8 knots. No sudden changes of speed or direction. No reverse gear except in an emergency. No approach to animals that are so close to the rocks that the boat would box them in.

In the watching band, one platform may stay up to 10 minutes. The whole group of boats shares a maximum of 40 minutes, counted from the first boat in. The first boat tells the others, by VHF, when it entered and when it leaves. Boats waiting outside have to wait at least 120 minutes after the last boat has left. If the animals show the disturbance signs the law lists — a marked change of direction and speed, repeated avoidance, longer dives and less time at the surface, repeated tail slaps, adults moving calves away or putting themselves between the calves and the boat — the boats leave, past the approach area, from behind the animals.

Also prohibited: chasing, separating a group or a calf, touching a live animal, throwing anything, bringing a domestic animal, using sonar, and entering the water in order to interact with a marine mammal or a turtle. Night watching of marine vertebrates is prohibited, apart from listed exceptions that are not a tourist night trip. Jet skis and similar craft cannot be used as watching platforms. Aircraft have a separate distance rule and are not a watching platform either.

Underwater watching is a licensed exception, not the ordinary trip. It is limited to two species, the common dolphin and the Atlantic spotted dolphin, and to at most four observers holding a line attached to the boat. Scuba, and underwater scooters, are not that exception.

You can come back without a sighting. The 92% figure above is a share of surveyed days in one study. It is not a rate for your departure.

How to choose a responsible operator

The regulation says a tourist watching trip needs an authorisation. The decree names the Serviço do Parque Natural da Madeira as the service that issues it. The operator also has to be licensed as a tourism-animation or maritime-tourism company, and registered at the maritime office. The IFCN page is where the regional government now publishes that regulation.

What you can look for, because the regulation requires it:

• The licence posted where you can see it: at the reception point, on the boat, and in any vehicle that takes you to the departure.
• A flag identifying the activity, kept flying.
• A copy of the regulation at reception and on the boat.
• A guide or monitor who tells passengers about the marine vertebrates: the species, the ecosystem, and a summary of the conduct rules. That role can be combined with other crew duties when the person is qualified. The crew has to be qualified for the boat. A separate biologist does not have to be on every departure: the regulation says the level-III technician responsible for the environmental side of the programme is not required to go to sea each time.

The IFCN legislation page does not publish a directory of who holds an authorisation. The check is the document on the boat, the flag, and the guide, not a list this site does not have.

Seasickness, and what to bring

The regulation makes the operator responsible for the safety of the people on board. It does not publish a remedy, and it does not publish a packing list.

NHS motion sickness guidance, reviewed 19 June 2023, says: sit in the middle of a boat, look at a fixed point such as the horizon, get fresh air, and breathe slowly with your eyes closed if you need to. It says not to read, watch films, or use electronic devices, and not to look at moving objects such as rolling waves. It says not to eat a heavy meal, eat spicy food, or drink alcohol shortly before or during the trip. It says a pharmacist can suggest a remedy. This guide does not name one. The crew’s decision to stay in harbour overrides any of that.

What to bring depends on the boat, and only one of the pages opened for this guide prints a list. VMT Madeira recommends, for its 3-hour catamaran, a wind-breaker, a camera, a bathing suit, a beach towel, and sun cream. That is that operator’s list. The same page says the boat sometimes stops for a swim below Cabo Girão. A swim stop is not permission to enter the water with the animals. The regulation prohibits entering the water in order to interact with a marine mammal.

If the boat does not leave, the museum that holds the species record is in Caniçal. Its species page says it is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, at Rua Garcia Moniz 1, phone +351 291 961 858/9.

Weekly notes from the island: subscribe to Madeira Journal.

Sources

Each of these was open and read for this guide, checked on 20 Oct 2026.

• Museu da Baleia da Madeira, “Baleias e Golfinhos na Madeira”, page dated 19 August 2025. The 28 species, seasonal common dolphin, year-round bottlenose dolphin, baleen whales, and the museum’s hours.
• Fernandez, Alves, Ferreira, Fischer, Thake, Nunes, Caldeira, and Dinis, 2021, Frontiers in Marine Science. Month windows, Funchal and Calheta departures, and the south-coast limit of the training data. Funded in part by the Observatório Oceânico da Madeira.
• Alves, Ferreira, Fernandes, Halicka, Dias, and Dinis, 2018, Marine Ecology. Surveyed-day figures, the June and February species counts, and Marina do Funchal in the author addresses.
• Alves, Quérouil, Dinis, and colleagues, 2013, Aquatic Conservation. Pilot-whale residency, 2003–2011.
• JORAM, Decreto Legislativo Regional n.º 15/2013/M, 14 May 2013. Distances, times, prohibitions, authorisation, and the museum’s voluntary code. The same decree is in the Diário da República.
• IFCN, observação de vertebrados marinhos, and the legislation page updated 16 February 2026. The 12 September in-force line, and the portarias still listed. The page does not list Decreto-Lei n.º 9/2006.
• Museu da Baleia, technical study supporting whale-watching operating areas and carrying capacity (CETACEOSMADEIRA II). The five species that made up 86% of boat encounters in 2010–2012, the harbours, and the hours the boats worked. PDF. Checked 19 Oct 2026.
• ARDITI, interview with Rita Ferreira (OOM). Twenty-nine species. Checked 19 Oct 2026.
• Observatório Oceânico da Madeira, photo-ID catalogues. Pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins.
• Portaria n.º 46/2014 and Portaria n.º 13/2015. Platform caps, three trips a day, the exclusion area.
• IFCN requirements page, updated 29 May 2025. Sea carrying capacity full; no operator directory on the page.
• IPMA, Funchal observatory daily bulletin, read on 19 Oct 2026, for the 18 and 19 October sea lines only.
• Ventura do Mar, activities. Operator-published duration, marina, and clock times for that company’s whale and dolphin tour.
• VMT Madeira, whale watching. Operator-published duration, quay, clock times, and the packing list for that catamaran.
• NHS, motion sickness, page reviewed 19 June 2023. What to do on a moving boat.

Written with AI assistance from official and cited sources. Report an error: hello@madeirajournal.com.

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