birdwatching

We saw our first fins in a while today and excitingly one of them was an adult minke whale. We see most of these from July onwards but sometimes do see them in the early spring too. This was spotted by Josh just after we had been watching some resting common dolphins, which were quite…

We had such great seabird sightings on today’s Ocean Discovery. Conditions were probably better than they have been so far this spring, with sunshine and calm blue sea (though the breeze was still chilly). There were thousands of Manx shearwaters out there flowing like a current from east to west, gliding past the boat and…

Just a two hour trip today. At last the sea was flat and we had a really favourable westerly breeze, perfect for sailing almost the whole trip. We were a few hours off low tide, but there were already four seals hauled out on the rocks and several more in the water. There were several …

After today half term is going to get  pretty windy, so we were pleased to have two trips today. This morning’s Ocean Discovery passengers saw large groups of harbour porpoises feeding with gannets – they were even leaping and breaching like dolphins as they charged around after fish. We also had lovely views of seals…

We had a four hour trip today in similar conditions to yesterday though less wind so the sea was a bit smoother. It was a typically productive October trip with lots to see. We motored along the coast until Porthcurno then sailed out to the Epson Shoal as the wind direction was just right. We…

After some very strong wind this week we were back out with two Ocean Discovery trips today. There was still a hefty swell running which looked spectacular against the coast. This morning we found small pods of common dolphins in several places as well as harbour porpoises and lots of seals. There were lots of…

Once again we saw hundreds of common dolphins throughout the day. We found harbour porpoises on both the morning and afternoon tours and saw sleepy grey seals in the morning. The bird life was once again spectacular as well as the usual suspects we also saw Cory’s, great and sooty shearwaters on both the morning…

It was a chilly grey day today but we had two awesome trips. A bank holiday whale seems to be becoming a bit of a tradition, and we got one today – a very large minke feeding with common dolphins on this morning’s four hour trip. The northerly wind of the last few days seems…

The weather forecast  for the rest of today and overnight is looking absolutely terrible, however we were able to sneak out this morning for a Bay Discovery trip before the wind got up and the rain started. We’re really glad we managed it, because we saw lots of common dolphins inshore, some grey seals round…

This morning’s passengers were lucky enough to find three minke whales on their Discovery Voyage trip. One of them was the spotty one with a nick out  of its fin which we saw yesterday, and another was a really large individual. They were feeding in an area with harbour porpoises, bluefin tuna and lots of…