grey seals

Today’s conditions could not have been more different to yesterday. With an increasing south westerly wind chopping up the sea, and grey skies threatening rain (but holding off) we just did the morning Ocean Discovery. We saw some grey seals including old faithful Kelp hauled out on the island as well as a variety of…

We had an Ocean Discovery trip this morning in perfect sailing conditions though it feels more like April, temperature wise. Heading out we had an encounter with a scattered pod of four Risso’s dolphins – three adults and one calf. The mum/calf pair is the same one we saw yesterday, and the other two adults…

We had to cancel yesterday because of the strong northerly wind, and it was still pretty breezy today. This is an offshore wind though, so close to the coast at least, it doesn’t make for rough conditions. On the morning Ocean Discovery we found some more Risso’s dolphins – a pair this time. They were…

We had a great couple of Ocean Discovery trips today in improving conditions after the strong westerly wind of the last few days. This morning we found several small groups of common dolphins in the bay, feeding with large numbers of Manx shearwaters. There are also guillemots and razorbills amongst the big rafts of shearwaters…

We had a lovely three hour trip this afternoon in really calm conditions. Despite the gloom on land, offshore the sun was out. We found three seals hauled out on the island, including our favourites Kelp and Seaweed. This is the 17th year in a row we have seen Kelp in this location – truly…

We had a two hour trip with the charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation this morning (WDC) and some of their guests. The breeze was certainly stronger than it has been recently so we had a pretty good sail (with reefed sails!). On the island we saw Seaweed the grey seal dozing on a rock, with…

We had two Ocean Discovery boat trips today. On the morning tour we found two pods of common dolphins. The first juvenile pod came racing in to bow ride giving a fantastic encounter. We watched the second group, which was made up of mother’s and calves from a distance initially before they also came over…

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 our first  four hour sail of the season this morning in rather more easterly wind than  was forecast. It built behind us as we sailed into the Land’s End area, where it was much calmer and we saw lots of bird life including some feeding Manx shearwaters, as well as some grey seals….

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…