Wednesday 4th September
We had a four hour followed by a three hour trip today in windy northerly conditions. Even so, we had some great sightings – during the morning we initially found some common dolphins then sailed southwards where we found two minke whales feeding among the bluefin tuna and shearwaters. As we sailed back towards the…
Sunday 2nd September
What a couple of trips we had today in spite of (or maybe because of) the misty conditions, and with some really friendly and interested passengers. I do love September! Dolphins here, dolphins there, dolphins literally everywhere. Leaping tuna in the morning, shearwaters (again four species spotted), grey seals, harbour porpoises. This afternoon we had…
Saturday 17th August
It was supposed to be a day off today but we put on a couple of late notice trips because of the windy days we have lost this week. It started off beautifully calm with some sunshine and we found some grey seals initially. Heading further south we spotted a group of common dolphins who…
Friday 9th August
We had a spectacular day on the water today with awe inspiring sightings on both our morning Ocean Discovery and afternoon Discovery Voyage trips. We quickly spotted a big feeding frenzy of gannets from a distance first thing and as expected, underneath there were lots of hunting common dolphins. Amongst the gannets and dolphins there…
Thursday 1st August
On this afternoon’s four hour trip, we saw the most amazing feeding frenzies of hundreds of bluefin tuna! Up until we saw the accompanying thousands of seabirds, things had been rather quiet inshore, so we headed off south and west. The seabirds gradually hove into view and they included gannets, all manner of gulls, Manx…
Tuesday 30th July
On this morning’s three hour Ocean Discovery tour we saw our first big feeding frenzies of bluefin tuna of the summer. This is an amazing sight (and sound!), as the tuna rush around hunting prey, and making the water look as though it is boiling. Occasionally they launch themselves out of the water and you…
Sightings summary for 2023
I have been looking back over 2023 and made some images to represent our sightings of different species. We recorded cetaceans on 81% of our trips last year, which is an amazing sightings rate. 10252 dolphins, porpoises and whales! We also saw grey seals on most trips, bluefin tuna and ocean sunfish. Each image has…
Wednesday 25th October
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…
Tuesday 10th October
Back out to sea today after a few days of holiday. The recent balmy sunshine was hidden by mist and murk first thing but it was clear enough to run the Bay Discovery trip. There was lots to see out there with about ten seals spotted on the island, a couple of Portguese men of…
Friday 15th September
We had a couple of extraordinary Ocean Discovery trips today in warm, sunny conditions. This morning we found so many common dolphins which were feeding, socialising and bowriding. They were even catching fish as they swam alongside the boat. In amongst them were some very large bluefin tuna, who were sending the gulls into a…