Thursday 8th October

We had a four hour trip this afternoon. It’s starting to feel very autumnal out there – our long hot summer and balmy early autumn are definitely waning, so my very strong recommendation is to dress for the season! This means plenty of layers, and please accept our offers of waterproof trousers if you don’t have your own – not because you will necessarily get wet, but because they keep the cold wind out!

The strong northerly wind we had yesterday has finally broken up the very persistent and concentrated feeding which has been going on in the inner part of the bay, which means we had to search much harder today. We did manage to find a couple of groups of very fast moving common dolphins, which rushed in to bowride us briefly. We also had some good bird sightings, including three grey phalaropes, some curlews, gannets, and big strings of auks flapping furiously towards the horizon. There were also a couple of seals lazing in the water around the island – an adult male and an adult female.

We watched the Blue Clipper sailing away after several weeks in Penzance wet dock. They are off to Porto first, then to the Canaries, then across the Atlantic to Suriname.

Next spaces available are on Saturday afternoon’s Bay Discovery at 2pm (2 remaining)