Sightings Blog

We saw our first fins in a while today and excitingly one of them was an adult minke whale. We see most of these from July onwards but sometimes do see them in the early spring too. This was spotted by Josh just after we had been watching some resting common dolphins, which were quite…

This morning there was hardly  a breath of wind and we had to get out of the harbour because of the dropping tide, so we went out into the bay and bobbed around for a few hours. Under a gannet in the distance we saw a tall curved dorsal fin surface once – a Risso’s…

We had a three hour trip today in nicer conditions than we have had this year so far. It was so amazing to see the sunshine glinting on calm saw! There were plenty of seabirds to be seen and the light was perfect for photography, including so many Manx shearwaters and guillemots, gannets, gulls, fulmars….There…

We had our first  four hour sail of the season this morning in rather more easterly wind than  was forecast. It built behind us as we sailed into the Land’s End area, where it was much calmer and we saw lots of bird life including some feeding Manx shearwaters, as well as some grey seals….

Lots of birdlife around again today, including several great northern divers and common scoters, neither of which we see very often. There were a couple of seals round the island, though it was high tide so most of them were off out to sea. Further offshore there were guillemots, gannets, razorbills and Manx shearwaters. April…

We had such great seabird sightings on today’s Ocean Discovery. Conditions were probably better than they have been so far this spring, with sunshine and calm blue sea (though the breeze was still chilly). There were thousands of Manx shearwaters out there flowing like a current from east to west, gliding past the boat and…

It was very chilly today in that cold northerly wind! Luckily that is forecast to drop overnight and tomorrow looks calm. We had nine passengers on a 3 hour Ocean Discovery this morning, and we had a great sail along the coast. There were lots of grey seals on the island including some juveniles, who…

Just a two hour trip today. At last the sea was flat and we had a really favourable westerly breeze, perfect for sailing almost the whole trip. We were a few hours off low tide, but there were already four seals hauled out on the rocks and several more in the water. There were several …

We had a three hour trip this morning. Sea conditions were better though it was quite quiet for wildlife. We saw some grey seals hauled out on the island and lots of seabirds including good numbers of Manx shearwaters. The light on the sea looked beautiful. There were even more numbers of by-the-wind-sailors around. Jellyfish…

We had two Ocean Discovery trips today in a lively south westerly sea, but it was so good to see the sun again! This morning we again saw lots and lots of the little by-the-wind-sailors – with their little sails up, perhaps they were enjoying the sailing as much as we were. There were plenty…

It was a grey murky day today as expected, however the sea has mostly calmed down after the extraordinarily strong wind and huge tides of the last week or so. This morning was admittedly very misty, though as often happens when the vis is poor, the seabird sightings were great. There were very large numbers…

We were scheduled to have an Ocean Discovery this morning and hoped we could sneak it in before the wind and rain got too much. It started out fine, despite the strong wind overnight, and we did well on the wildlife front. We managed to find a group of common dolphins, some harbour porpoises and…