Thursday 4th September

The autumn swells are definitely making themselves felt at the moment – it was startling how abruptly our glorious summer came to a screeching halt with the arrival of Hurricane Erin at the end of August. However our passengers still want to get out there and they are proving to be an enthusiastic and hardy bunch who don’t mind the weather! This morning there were only a couple of spots out of the swell on the island, and the seals were all crowded onto these and it wasn’t doing their temper any good at all – lots of snarling and snapping. In the distance we could see some gannets in the middle of the bay, so we motored slowly into the swells to see if there was anything else out there. In amongst the rolling windy waves there were glimpses of fins, and then a large maternal pod of common dolphins gave us a swim by. Plenty of gannets, shearwaters, a grey phalarope and common terns completed the scene.

This afternoon the dolphins  had moved on, but in their place we had brilliant views of harbour porpoises close in to the coast. There were also some seals in the water by the island and a Cory’s shearwater did a flyby too. The swell hadn’t dropped any  and there were some “sharp showers”,  but tomorrow is looking like a very different day.