Saturday 29th July

Today was a very exciting day at Marine Discovery. So much wind meant that the four hour trip this morning was again shortened to a three hour, however the wildlife sightings were phenomenal. Sailing on the way to the island we found some common dolphins initially before watching the seals on the island. Heading offshore we picked up some frenzied bird activity which led us to some really awesome encounters with masses of bluefin tuna. They were rushing through the water causing boiling cascades of white water. On the edge of that a minke whale joined in the feeding, and a little later on a large vapoury blow showed us a large adult fin whale! It circled and surfaced repeatedly. This afternoon’s Bay Discovery passengers had almost as good sightings – common dolphins joined us as we sailed southwards, but the sheer volume of tuna feeding had pushed most of them elsewhere for the now. It’s hard to describe the number of tuna shoals which were erupting – it looked like Godzilla was about to burst out of the sea! Countless seabirds whirring round included gannets, Manx shearwaters, gulls and more Cory’s shearwaters than we have ever seen. The bay is just chockablock with fish – from the photos it looks as though everything is eating the sprats.*