sailing

A long day today with a Discovery Voyage (4 hour) followed by an Ocean Discovery (3 hour) trip. This morning we had lovely clear views of a harbour porpoise in the early morning calm. It circled repeatedly round the boat, just carrying on with what it was doing. Further offshore all was quiet apart from…

We had two Ocean Discovery trips today and had great sightings on both. This morning we found a small group of common dolphins who stayed with us a while, lots of feeding seabirds and an ocean sunfish. We also saw a herring gull divebombing a heron, which we haven’t witnessed before. This afternoon we watched…

We had a lovely look at several harbour porpoises on this morning’s Ocean Discovery trip. While we see them very frequently later in the summer, views at this time of year are often more difficult and fleeting, but not today! We also saw some common dolphins, lots of seabirds and some grey seals hauled out….

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 started calm this morning, perfect for spotting cetaceans. There were plenty of common dolphins in the bay, resting, socialising and then feeding. There were a couple of seals round the island, though the tide wasn’t low for a few more hours. Nearby we had some really lovely close views of a pair of fulmars…

We had an Ocean Discovery trip this morning and a Discovery Voyage trip this afternoon, and it was the morning people who had the most luck with the sightings. There were several seals hauled out on the island including two small juveniles and Kelp the old female we have been watching for so many years….

Today we took the other Year 2 class out from a local primary school in three separate trips, and what a day they had.  Seals, seabirds and some excellent sailing skills from seven year old novices  – conditions weren’t easy with a brisk westerly wind and quite a swell coming into the bay. Not only…

We had the Year 2 children from a local school out on three separate 1 1/2 trips today so the whole class could come out – and the other class is doing the same thing tomorrow! They have been learning about pirates, smugglers, and sea shanties and we were treated to some renditions of those…

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…

On today’s boat tour, we had a surprise on leaving the harbour this afternoon when a very small minke whale popped up just in front of us, then behind us then was gone! People are often concerned when they see little whales on their own, but minkes wean and are independent when they are quite…