Tuesday 16th July

We had two Ocean Discovery trips today, and there was a surprising amount of swell out there. There was still plenty of wildlife to see, with lots of common dolphins and gannets feeding this morning as well as a few seals in the water. This afternoon we didn’t have to go far before a large dolphin popped up right by the boat – a Risso’s dolphin! It was a relatively dark individual, but there were some very noticeable scratches and patches on it. There were also a few others around, though they were spread right out. As we then headed west, under some feeding gannets we found good numbers of harbour porpoises who surfaced really close to the boat repeatedly. These including a mum/calf pair. At the end of the trip we saw a couple of seals, one young male hauled out on the rocks.