Monday 17th July

There was loads to see on this morning’s Discovery Voyage trip. There was a large pod of bottlenose dolphins first of all, numbering about forty animals. Again, theses are not what used to be described as “the inshore pod” which used to be seen regularly in Cornwall, who now seem to have disappeared as a group. Individuals might have been absorbed into other pods, or perhaps they have moved round into the North Sea or up to Cardigan Bay. These are groups which come in periodically from further offshore and are spotted a couple of times a year, so it was a nice unusual sighting. We also saw some very distant common dolphins, and a long way to the south we found some Risso’s dolphins too. At the start of the trip we encountered harbour porpoises several times, so it was a really cetacean rich trip. In total contrast, this afternoon’s Ocean Discovery tour was extremely quiet. We searched our very hardest but drew a total blank when it came to fins. There were just a couple of seals in the water near the island. However the disk in my camera corrupted so no photos of them, and none of the lovely guillemots, shearwaters and Mediterranean gulls we saw. Oh well.