Friday 5th September

What a fantastic day we had today. There was still a hefty swell running, but otherwise conditions were good. This morning we found fifteen seals on the island; they were mainly adult females but there was two males and a couple of juveniles as well. We then headed south, finding bluefin tuna and, rather unusually, a single common dolphin – well done to Steph for spotting that one. There were some good seabird sightings including a sooty sheartwater, some Cory’s shearwaters and a storm petrel. During the afternoon we had a major purple patch, when we found a large pod of offshore bottlenose dolphins, numbering approximately eighty animals! We watched some really interesting behaviour including socialising, bowriding and leaping. There were some young calves with them, still showing their foetal folds. This was a real treat – such large pods of offshore bottlenoses don’t come inshore very often. Yet more dolphins appeared later on – commons this time. We added another shearwater species to today’s list with some lovely views of a great shearwater, making four in total.