boat trips

It was another windy day with awesome sailing conditions. We headed further out this time and there were a few more Manx shearwaters than there were yesterday, though on the whole everything was rather quiet. The coast and sea looked magnificent in the shafts of sunlight – the sea was cobalt blue. Inshore we saw…

May already! For May Day we were greeted by some lovely views of puffins – a single adult which sat very bravely on the water before taking off, followed by an immature bird with its sooty little face a while later. There were also lots of other seabirds to see including shearwaters, guillemots and razorbills….

Back from Dundee straight to a full day on the water! This morning’s two hour passengers were treated to a brief view of some distant Risso’s dolphins – our first of the season. We also saw some seals hauled out on the island including a young juvenile. There were so many seabirds today – the…

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…