Sunday 13th September

We were really lucky with the weather today which was forecast to be murky and misty all day; as it was, we even saw the odd bit of sunshine. On both the morning Ocean Discovery and the afternoon Bay Discovery trips there was so much cetacean activity to be seen – hundreds of common dolphins feeding fairly close in this morning as well as a lunge feeding minke whale. This was mainly going on under the water so the whale’s body itself wasn’t that visible, but it was sending up some very impressive surges of white water. Both the dolphins and the whale were accompanied by lots of gannets feeding, and some really big bluefin tuna.

This afternoon, the gannets and dolphins remained. The dolphins had stopped feeding by now and were very interactive with the catamaran, so we had lots of close by activity and bow riding. There were also plenty of seals hauled out on the island and on the westerly wind we had a fine sail back inshore.

At the end of the day we were joined by Jon and Nicky of Birds of Praa, who had a couple of rehabilitated shearwaters they wanted us to take out to sea and release. We carefully chose a spot well away from any feeding gulls and gannets, knowing it would take the shearwaters a little time to stretch their wings and get their bearings. One of them was much less keen than the other to leave my hands and had to be encouraged onto the water. We left them preening, stretching and flapping their wings. Hopefully they’ll be ok 🤞