Thursday 21st September

We were back on the water today after a very windy and wet few days. There was still a big chunky swell running, but conditions were ok to do two Ocean Discovery trips. The windy interlude did not affect wildlife sightings – there were plenty of common dolphins to be found, and we had great views of them surfing round the boat in repeated encounters on both trips. There were also several seals to be seen round the island, though because there was a lot of swell hitting the rocks most of them were in the water. Seabird sightings were still really good with lots of Cory’s shearwaters and gannets seen, and this afternoon we had repeated sightings of skuas – most of these were arctic and there was one great skua.