Saturday 25th November

A chilly grey day today, and conditions weren’t nearly as still and glassy as we were promised! However we had a lovely end of season trip with some fun friendly people on board – thanks for coming guys! Even though it was high tide we saw some seals hauled out on rocks on the island and also in the water – I think this shows clearly that they are more confident to do that in the off season when there are fewer boats around. We kept our distance so they could continue relaxing.  Heading out into the bay we saw sporadic gannet activity which didn’t look massively promising, though it’s always worth checking out. A good move, because they led us to where the porpoises were feeding, who have us some really lovely encounters. A group of about eight repeatedly swam very close to the boat, giving everyone great views.Porpoises are not known for this behaviour, but if you see them on the right day, then they can out-dolphin the dolphins. We then saw some activity the distance which looked very much like common dolphins but which turned out to be bluefin tuna – some of the luckier passengers got to see the fish as they jumped. Seabird numbers were smaller than the other day, but we did see some guillemots, gannets and common scoters.