boat trips

A day of two halves, with calm conditions on this morning’s 3 hour tour, but a building easterly wind made things rather choppy at times on the 4 hour tour this afternoon. This morning we found lots of cetaceans, including Risso’s dolphins, common dolphins and porpoises as well as grey seals in the water. There…

Such calm silky water, chockablock with plankton, jellyfish and – this afternoon at least – dolphins. Our four hour trip this morning was actually quite quiet until we found a group of common dolphins, though conditions were beautifully calm and clear. We did see a few seals bottling round the island, including a big male….

The day started off murky but the wildlife this morning was fantastic. We had great views of harbour porpoises (between 30 and 40) feeding under diving gannets, followed by a terrific encounter with some common dolphins who were in a very showy offy mood. As we came back into the bay we found a group…

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….