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Sightings Blog

Penzance boat trips

Tuesday 23rd April

This morning there was hardly  a breath of wind and we had to get out of the harbour because of the dropping tide, so we went out into the bay and bobbed around for a few hours. Under a gannet in the distance we saw a tall curved dorsal fin surface once – a Risso’s…

Monday 22nd April

We had a three hour trip today in nicer conditions than we have had this year so far. It was so amazing to see the sunshine glinting on calm saw! There were plenty of seabirds to be seen and the light was perfect for photography, including so many Manx shearwaters and guillemots, gannets, gulls, fulmars….There…

Thursday 18th April

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…

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…

Sunday 22nd October

We had two great trips today, a Bay Discovery in the morning and a last minute Ocean Discovery in the afternoon. During the morning the inner part of the bay was alive with hunting porpoises and gannets tracking them, firing into the water like arrows. There were also bluefin tuna down there in the action,…

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…

Tuesday 3rd October

Instead of fog today we had wind – lots of wind! However in the bright blustery conditions, conditions were ok to run a two hour trip and we had an exciting sail (and rather a lot of splash). It was worth it though, because a long way out we spotted some feeding gannets which showed…

Friday 29th September

After some very strong wind this week we were back out with two Ocean Discovery trips today. There was still a hefty swell running which looked spectacular against the coast. This morning we found small pods of common dolphins in several places as well as harbour porpoises and lots of seals. There were lots of…

Monday 11th September

We had two Ocean Discovery trips today on a quiet, grey day. On the morning trip we found common dolphins, had great views of harbour porpoises and saw some hunting bluefin tuna. There were also lots of grey seals hauled out on the island. This afternoon everything was rather sleepy – we saw a couple…

Wednesday 16th August

We had an amazing couple of trips today – a four hour Discovery Voyage this morning followed by a two hour Bay Discovery this afternoon. There were cetaceans everywhere we looked this morning – we had great views of two minke whales feeding in the bay this morning, who both came very close to the…