Tuesday 1st September

We had two fabulous Ocean Discovery trips today, with enormous numbers of dolphins on both. It was completely calm first thing so we motored south to an area where we calculated would be good feeding conditions and we were rewarded with the first dolphins of the day. They were feeding with bluefin tuna and hundreds of gannets, though oddly only a few shearwaters today. On the way back we saw several seals hauled out on the rocks.

This afternoon on the low tide there were ten seals in total, a mixture of adult males and females. They were very relaxed in the sunshine. The wind was building now so the sails were hoisted and we headed southwards. We soon spotted the gannets on the far horizon, and soon afterwards could see massive splashes even with the naked eye – bluefin tuna leaping. A small trawler was working the edge of all the action, which kept stop-starting, as always happens when tuna are involved. Soon we could see dolphins absolutely everywhere. I saw and heard a behaviour I haven’t seen in 22 years of trips – a line of four to six dolphins lined up and spyhopping. Even though we’d heard plenty of whistley communication as we sailed along and they swam with us, now we could hear them vocalising outside the water – a blowing raspberries type sound, as well as the whistles and “Flipper” like noises. Fascinating stuff. We then had a relaxing spinnaker run back to shore.