Tuesday 18th August

Two Ocean Discovery trips today in conditions which seem to have entirely returned to normal! On this morning’s tour, conditions were reasonably tricky – we managed to find common dolphins and Risso’s dolphins but they were tricky. The hundreds of dolphins we were seeing a few days ago have moved offshore again for the moment. There were a couple of sad sights – we saw the same entangled gannet we saw last week. It has got a wedge of fishing litter in its beak which isn’t freeing itself and also some hooked into its wing. We also saw a seal with some fishing line and a lure wrapped round its neck. It’s so maddening to see these poor animals suffering because of people’s lack of care.

This afternoon we stopped to look at the seals again – there were eight hauled out this time, including the entangled one. Along the coast we were just on the right tide again for the bluefin tuna chasing the garfish up against the cliffs. They are leaping so close to shore just there. One of these days I will get a sharp photo, but they are so unpredictable! As we sailed further offshore we were lucky to encounter a small maternal pod of common dolphins who had some properly tiny newborns with them – one of them was so young its dorsal fin was still floppy. As ever we gave these mums and calves extra space and let them swim away after their brief investigation of the boat.