boat trips

It was a murky day today but the wildlife brightened everything up. We started at the island watching seals start to haul out, then as we went south, we appeared to motor into a cloud which was pretty persistent for about an hour. We watched some fish boiling away at the surface and some kittiwakes…

We had another lovely day today. Bright sunshine and calm seas allowed us to search offshore. In the morning we found lots of different groups of harbour porpoises and had some lovely interactions in the calm conditions. We also saw a variety of seabirds including many arctic skuas, who were harassing kittiwakes for their catch….

Conditions today were similar to yesterday’s, though with no rain and slightly less swell. This morning on our three hour trip we saw plenty of grey seals and seabirds including a sooty and Cory’s shearwater. We also found some common dolphins and had some clear (though brief!) views of harbour porpoises. There are a lot…

The wind and swell is playing havoc wit our schedule at  the moment, however we managed to sneak out for a Bay Discovery trip this morning. This was due to be a 3 hour trip but because of the wind and sea conditions we shortened it and stayed in the relative shelter of the Bay….

We had a very loud thunderstorm and lots of squally wind first thing so the morning trip was cancelled. Though the swell was still impressive it was ok to set off on the afternoon trip. We saw lots of seals round the island and the seabirds gliding over the waves looked amazing. Closer in we…

It was a really long day yesterday with 2 Ocean Discovery trips followed by a Bay Discovery at the end of the day. Both the longer trips saw lots of common dolphins and a few sneaky porpoises, though during the afternoon especially we had to go a really long way to find them. It had…

What a day we had today on the last day of June. We found a dismembered cuttlefish on leaving the harbour on this morning’s Bay Discovery so were immediately on the alert for Risso’s dolphins. But it was common dolphins we found first – a medium sized group of adults and juveniles who  were keeping…

The forecast was really mixed and uncertain for today. It did end up raining a bit, but not tall the time, but the camera mostly remained safely stowed. Sea conditions were pretty floppy after the wind overnight though, which made spotting conditions tricky. We saw another large ocean sunfish and a feeding grey seal, but…

It all felt distinctly unpromising this afternoon with grey sky, grey sea and the threat of rain. However, despite the showers sweeping along the coast behind us, we didn’t get wet at all. We saw a few very lazy grey seals snoozing in the water by the island, before sailing offshore where we were “mugged”…

This morning’s trip was originally supposed to be a four hour tour, but as forecast, there was a lot of south west wind overnight, which created some big chunky swell. So we kept it to three hours and didn’t go too far west, but even so, the surf was an impressive sight. We found some…