This time we shipped a rather sizeable shipment consisting solely of invertebrates, such as Sphaerechinus granularis, Gibbula sp., Phorcus sauciatus, Paracentrotus lividus, and Marthasterias glacialis. As usual, there were no losses whatsoever in the 500+ critters we shipped all the way from the middle of the Atlantic!

But this is just the first of two more shipments, and you should brace yourselves for the next ones, but we’ll share those after the deed, because it’s bad luck to brag before!

Onward and forward!

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Our destination was Santiago and the mission was simple in theory and slightly insane in practice:

1. Find a local partner that would collect and maintain a rather long list of specimens we picked after careful revision on… Google.
2. Monitor – and finance – the collection process from 10.000 km away.
3. Arrange all the necessary export and import documents, which involved making government agencies talk directly to each other, always a fun job.
4. Finally, it was time to fly to Santiago and carefully pack 127 fish and invertebrates in 54 large boxes, before flying them safely to their European destination.

As is often the case with these operations, this was months in the making, together with a fantastic local partner in Chile. Also as usual, the final hours decided to add a bit of spice to the story, hence our witty title.

Just when everything seemed perfectly lined up, our air freight rate suddenly increased fourfold. Yes… fourfold. At that point we placed nitroglycerin tablets under our tongues just to keep our blood pressure within reasonable limits.

But the fun didn’t stop there.

Somewhere along the trip, João developed a rather nasty eye infection – most likely stress-related – which made simple tasks like reading emails, writing paperwork, or staring at fish bags a lot more challenging than usual. Driving the fork-lift at night was also interesting, but the boxes somehow found their way inside the small trucks.

Still, operations like these are never the work of just a few people. Thanks to the brilliant help of young Miguel, Tiago and the fabulous Aquamundo team, a packing plan worthy of a small military operation was devised and executed to perfection.

And in the end – which is always the only result that truly matters – all animals – but one… 🙁 – arrived safely at their destination.

We can only hope this shipment will be the first of many future orders bringing fish from this remarkable and exciting part of the world.

Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that these journeys always begin with fish…

……but they usually end with stories.

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At first glance, you’d think they are competitors of Flying Sharks. Truth is, we often find ourselves working together, because we operate in completely different corners of the planet. We’re based in the Azores, Peniche and Olhão while Dynasty calls Florida home and Cairns rules Australian waters. Different oceans, same mindset.

Our friendship and mutual respect go back to 1998, when João was still their client and ordered a few beautiful B747 charters stuffed to the gills with sharks, rays and a small army of fish for the grand opening of the Oceanário de Lisboa. Back then, he was buying from them. Today, we stand side by side as partners.

But our alliance is not just about conference drinks and swapping war stories.

All three companies are fiercely committed to sustainability. That means individual hand collection – literally one animal at a time – with zero chemicals, zero destructive gear, zero shortcuts that might harm the environment. We are borderline obsessive about traceability. Every single animal we sell to an aquarium has a story, a paper trail, and accountability attached to it. The word “responsibility” is not marketing fluff for us; it’s a non-negotiable standard.

For all these reasons – and perhaps with one g & t too many in our systems – we proudly baptized ourselves “The Consortium of Sustainability and Goodness”.

The very next morning I called my dear friend Leonor Sousa and asked her for a logo featuring a panda diving with a net in one hand and bright orange swim shorts. She loved the madness and came back with this glorious flag we recently flew during our latest Saudi adventure.

There is, however, one tiny catch (pardon our pun): collecting animals one by one is expensive. Very expensive.

It’s no coincidence that the three partners of this Consortium are often labelled the most expensive in the world. But let’s be honest: when you want quality, you have to be willing to pay for it.

If you’re looking for cheap fish scooped up in a frenzy, we can give you a few names who don’t share our concerns. In that case, there’s really no point in calling us.

PS – Below you will find (top row) João fooling around with Lyle Squire Jr. and Ben Daughtry, from Cairns and Dynasty, respectively. Below are Rui Guedes (left) and Nuno Rodrigues (center) celebrating two weeks of amazing collections with Rahima-3’s wonderful Captain under a gorgeous Red Sea sunset!

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Let’s rewind for a second.

This mission involved capturing thousands of specimens for a local aquarium fully dedicated to coral research, breeding and reef repopulation in the Red Sea. It all began with an exploratory trip we carried out exactly one year ago, during which we took over 5.000 (!) photographs and identified hundreds of species.

Once a generous – and fair – contract was negotiated between both parties, we kicked off operations in October, then January, and now February.

And what days those were.

Half the operations started at 5:00 a.m. and stretched until 8:00 p.m. The other half began at noon and pushed on until 2:00~3:00 a.m. Long days. Short nights. Repeat.

We faced intense heat. We faced a client who wasn’t always easy but with good ol’ fashioned common sense and flexibility on all sides, and a whole lot of #focus, #dedication, #effort and #tenacity, we didn’t just hit our target for this trip.

We surpassed it.

At least one more operation lies ahead, and I’m fully confident it will be even more successful. That said, the job only gets harder. As the ‘easy’ species are secured first, what remains are the true heavyweights: sharks, rays and large schools.

The final boss levels.

We’re already studying and refining how to tackle that challenge in the next expeditions because, as we know all too well, every problem has a solution – and folding our arms has never solved anything.

That has been the Flying Sharks philosophy for nearly two decades.

And in the year we celebrate our 20th anniversary, what better way to mark it than by facing the biggest challenge in our history?

Let’s do this and many thanks to Aaron Sprowl for choosing us for partners in this exciting adventure!

The post Another day, another Saudi Trip! appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Watching this project come together has been immensely rewarding, and with construction now very close to the finish line, the scale of what’s being built is impossible to ignore. One of the highlights was visiting the main exhibit, right on the edge of the Red Sea, and seeing the fish we collected back in October doing exactly what we hoped they would do: thriving, growing, and settling beautifully into their new, spacious home. Surrounded by stunning captive-bred corals, impressive engineering solutions, and a highly motivated team, this project continues to raise the bar at every turn.

This particular trip didn’t quite deliver the collections output we had originally planned, largely due to a few permitting details that still needed ironing out – but those wheels are already in motion. More importantly, the visit gave us the opportunity to fine-tune our strategy, adjust a few key details, and put a solid, realistic plan in place. With another collections trip just days away, we’re feeling energized, aligned, and very confident that the next round will be our most productive yet. We’re proud to be part of a project of this magnitude, and genuinely excited about what lies ahead.

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Thanks to the generosity of Bergen Aquarium, a number of Norwegian aquaculture partners, and our Danish friends at facilities such as Nordsoen, Jyllands Aquarium, and Den Blå Planet, a diverse group of animals was donated to support València’s brand-new cold-water exhibit. Over five days on the road, our Mobile Station did what it does best, delivering every animal safely and in excellent condition.

With the truck now back home and the tanks empty, it’s time to slow things down briefly, recharge batteries, and enjoy the holiday season. That pause won’t last long, though: 2026 kicks off immediately after New Year’s Eve with another operation in the Middle East, followed by several exciting adventures already on the horizon.

To all our clients, partners, and friends, we wish you a wonderful holiday season and a truly spectacular 2026.

The post Closing the Year on the Road: From Scandinavia to València appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Holy mackerel… 2025 really kept us on our toes. After countless Zoom meetings and negotiations, that stretched longer than some of our transports, we finally sealed a major contract with a new facility in the Middle East dedicated to coral restoration and conservation. This partnership took us to the Red Sea twice this year – first in February, then again in October – and marked our first steps into a region whose biodiversity and conservation ambitions are nothing short of inspiring. These trips also included a memorable journey to Kenya, where we refined our techniques for collecting in tropical waters.

But 2025 had another momentous milestone, which was years in the making. After five full years of design iterations, engineering gymnastics, paperwork that seemed to multiply by osmosis, and enough internal meetings to power a small city, our Mobile Station finally came to life. A 40-foot, temperature-controlled shipping container – funded by a generous half-million-euros EEA Grant – rolled into operational glory this June. Its inaugural voyage carried a full truckload of fish from the Canary Islands to the Al Hoceima Aquarium in Morocco. And because the universe enjoys testing us, Seville welcomed us with 47ºC heat. Yet, inside the Mobile Station, everything remained pristine. Zero losses. Exactly what we built it for.

Barely a month later came mission number two: four captive-bred sandbar sharks departing from L’Oceanogràfic in València and arriving in perfect condition at the Fish House in Stockholm. And as the year wrapped up, we closed with yet another demanding job — moving a large load of cold-water species from Norway and Denmark back to València.

We also kept our tradition alive on the academic side. In 2025 we awarded more than 10.000 euros in research grants to students, officially crossing the symbolic threshold of having given away more money than we ever received in client donations. We are genuinely proud of this – and yes, we still encourage everyone to continue adding that optional percentage to their invoices so we can keep helping bright young scientists. But, as always, we’ll continue whether donations come in or not.

Finally, let’s not forget our spectacular acrylic polishing business, with TechAquarium, which did a 5th (!) job at the Oceanário de Lisboa, and also the waterslides on a Disney cruiseliner, in partnership with our ClearRock friends.

Speaking of partnership, our Blue Shark Trading products are flying off the shelf, since we now handle all the import expenses and our European clients receive these goods hassle-free, directly from us. Check out these two promotional videos on two of our signature products, Colony and Triage, without which we couldn’t do what we do!

And now here we stand, entering 2026 – the year Flying Sharks turns 20.

That’s two decades of moving animals, solving problems on the fly, meeting extraordinary people, and relying on an ever-growing community of clients, partners, suppliers, and friends who helped us get here.

From the bottom of our slightly sleep-deprived but very grateful hearts: thank you. We truly couldn’t have come this far without you.

Here’s to 2026 – new adventures, new places, and new stories waiting to be told.

Your Flying Sharks gang of crazies

The post Merry Christmas and a kickass 2026! appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Our team spent two weeks on site, and the conditions were… let’s call them “character-building.” We didn’t quite have the number of local hands we hoped for, nor the ideal amount of boats or cars, and the weather kept things interesting from day one. Still, as history has shown time and again, Flying Sharks tends to perform best when things get complicated.

Despite the challenges, the team pushed through every obstacle and ended up collecting double the target for this first operational trip! Not a bad start, considering this was our debut in the region and the first of several collection missions planned for this project.

We’re genuinely thankful for the trust placed in us and excited about the work ahead. Helping launch an initiative so focused on coral conservation — in one of the most iconic marine regions on the planet — is both an honour and a responsibility we don’t take lightly.

More adventures from the Middle East coming soon. Stay tuned.

The post Flying Sharks’ First Middle East Collection Trip! appeared first on Flying Sharks.

First things first: a MASSIVE thank you to our wonderful host Dilek Capanoglu, Director of the Istanbul Aquarium, for organizing a truly spectacular EUAC 2025 meeting. From the flawless logistics to the jaw-dropping evening events, Dilek and her awesome team set the bar so high that future organizers may need a ladder. Or two.

Secondly, it was our absolute pleasure to spend the week with our EUAC friends. These meetings are always the perfect blend of hard work and genuinely good times, and it felt great to reconnect, share ideas, and enjoy those precious moments of fun that only happen when this wonderful group gets together.

And thirdly, we were delighted to contribute with three presentations, spread across three days of conservation-heavy goodness.

We kicked things off with our wild adventures in Poland, then dove into our four epic expeditions to Morocco, including the debut of our almighty Mobile Station, and wrapped things up with the unveiling of our brand-new line of business: educational mobile games and apps that keep visitors engaged long after they leave the aquarium. The future looks exciting!

All in all, EUAC 2025 was one for the books.

A perfect meeting in a perfect city, shared with perfect people.

Many thanks again, Dilek — you absolutely dazzled us.

And congratulations to our friend Attila Varga, who will host next year’s gathering in Hungary.

We can’t wait to see everyone again in 2026!

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So, let’s take this opportunity to do a bit of recap, yes? First there was Iona (click for adventure #1 and adventure #2), closely followed by Tobi. Then there were two animals from Rotterdam Zoo and Nazaré from Sea Life Scarborough.

Recently, our friends from Sea Life Scarborough and Sea Life Brighton jointly hit us for yet another operation, this time a “2 for 1” deal, whereby Tarquin and Barnacle Bill were driven to Heathrow by our good friends, and partners, JCS Livestock, after which they flew to Lisbon, landing around 10 in the evening.

Needless to say that landing at that time ensures that our staff, our customs broker, our freight-forwarder for the Lisbon-Horta flight, the Airport’s Veterinarian staff and the CITES inspector basically won’t leave the cargo terminal before 2 or 3 A.M… In our case, because we were moving some deep-sea critters to a research institute in Vienna that night also, the day was breaking by the time we left the cargo terminal!

But hey, the wellbeing of the animals is the absolutel priority, and that’s why both sea-turtles spent the night in the ground handling agent supervisor’s office, to ensure they were in a quiet and climatized space, away from the forklifts offloading cargo from trucks.

So here’s a group of awesome people involved in these operations, which we should have listed long ago:

First and foremost, many thanks to Todd German and Joe Williams from Sea Life Scarborough and Brighton, respectively, for choosing us as partners in these wonderful adventures.

Then our friends Philip Knowles and Lissa Ireland, from JCS Livestock, who bend over backwards to ensure a safe pick-up from the Sea Life sites and delivery to Heathrow’s Animal Reception Centre.

Then we have Paula Pinto, supervisor of TAP Cargo, and also Salete Marques, supervisor of Menzies Aviation, who ensure that the sea-turtles get VIP treatment while on the ground at Lisbon airport.

Then come Carla Palhinhas, from CEVA Logistics, and Ezequiel Feliciano, our customs broker, who cross every t, and dot every i, ensuring that all import procedures from London, and export to Horta, are as fast and smooth as humanly possible.

Here’s a special thank you to Dr. Pedro Melo, supervisor of the airport’s veterinarian crew, who extends his day into the early hours of the morning after, to ensure these animals have the shortest transit time possible.

Also special thanks to the CITES inspectors from the Nature Conservation Institute, who also travel to the airport in the middle of the night to ensure the animals in the crates are indeed the ones in the documentation, not to mention sharing some very cool stories about their job, often involving lions, tigers, and bears! Oh, my!

Finally, a special word of thanks to Ivan Beltran and Rui Guedes, who run our facility in the Azores, and Frederick Vandeperre, whom you will see in this sexy photo applying a satellite transmitter to yet another sea-turtle. As far as we know, there’s no other turtle-scientist on this planet who has tracked more sea-turtles than Fred and we’re delighted to assist his research any way we can!

We’ll finish off by sharing below some cool photos of the process and also some news articles in the British press. Many thanks João Pedreda for the awesome photos of the whole process!
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/25482317.sea-life-brighton-successfully-return-turtle-ocean/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5e14dn6zvo

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