Thursday 1st August

On this afternoon’s four hour trip, we saw the most amazing feeding frenzies of hundreds of bluefin tuna! Up until we saw the accompanying thousands of seabirds, things had been rather quiet inshore, so we headed off south and west. The seabirds gradually hove into view and they included gannets, all manner of gulls, Manx shearwaters, large numbers of Cory’s, Great, Balearic and Sooty shearwaters.What a seabird display – none of this attracted by a chum trail. But the tuna feeding was astonishing, and the noise was like listening to river rapids crashing. Some of the tuna were massive, at about 3m. They were all feeding on very small baitfish – you can see them in photos but we don’t know what (no point pretending you know when you don’t). The water was absolutely thick and glistening with scales. And a bit later on, along came some common dolphins and a couple of minke whales to join in the feast.

During the morning we ran a two hour trip for a local charitable group, and they had a lovely sail around the bay, spotting numerous grey seals, a couple of harbour porpoises and an ocean sunfish.