Friday 2nd August

Today the conditions were trickier than they had been, with a brisk southwesterly wind whipping the sea up into a choppy state. That meant the afternoon trip was shortened to two hours, but this morning we got the full three hours in. At this time of year, we start seeing more of the exciting offshore seabirds, those described as “pelagic” – basically ocean wanderers which come closer to our shores in summertime to forage. Last year we had unprecedented numbers of Cory’s and great Shearwaters, and we are starting to see them regularly again. This morning there were pockets of seabirds dotted around on the water – it was as though they had recently been feeding and we were just a little too late. A sharp eyed passenger spotted a couple of fins surfing down a wave towards the end of the trip. It was common dolphins and they surfaced a couple of times then disappeared. We did see really good numbers of seals hauled out on the rocks first thing. On the afternoon trip the wind had got up more, making for some choppy conditions, hence the shortened length. We had great views of a couple of Arctic skuas, one dark morph and one light morph. We also saw a couple of harbour porpoises and seals.