Sunday 26th October

We managed to get both our morning and afternoon trips in today, despite the questionable forecast. This morning on the Bay Discovery the birds were clearly feeding over bluefin tuna, but the tuna weren’t showing themselves particularly and neither were the porpoises which were doing the same thing. There were lots of seals hauled out on the island though, a good variety of seabirds and the sun shone. During the afternoon, the rain and wind started, however we had a great trip. First of all we watched the seals snoozing on the island, and then heading out the birds gathering and chasing showed us where the tuna were feeding. Everyone managed to get great view of some of them leaping, though I wasn’t quick enough on the camera. After that the wind really got up so we sailed back into more sheltered waters where we spotted a group of 10-15 common dolphins swimming and surfing down the waves. They too were really tricky to photograph, but the porpoises we saw next were far more obliging! We saw some of them breaching in the distance, which with porpoises often indicates courtship behaviour. There was a large pod there, and some of them swam right past the boat, giving everyone really great views. Heading in then, we were almost back at harbour when we got pelted with rain and wind, so it was a good thing it was the end of the afternoon!