Wednesday 16th September

A busy day today with a four hour followed by a three hour tour. This morning we went back out to the area where we saw all the activity yesterday morning. Sailing south, we saw fin whale blows 😮. This is an area where hundreds of dolphins and tuna have been feeding, as well as minke whales. We have seen whales on each day for the last few days, but very frustratingly it has been impossible to get photos, as they are surfacing so randomly and travelling so quickly. This pattern continued with the fin whale/s and another minke this morning  – despite the fin whales’ colossal length, they’re not known as the greyhounds of the sea for nothing, and sea conditions were grey and choppy. There were also hundreds of gannets feeding, along with some tiny storm petrels.

On the afternoon three hour trip, we first of all went to visit the seals, who were snoozing on the rocks. Some of them were incredibly high up – they must have hauled out on the high tide and then crawled up higher again. We went westwards after that, and as we sailed one passenger called “dolphin!” She was definite she had seen one, though nothing appeared for a minute or two. Then we had a real treat as a small maternal pod with some very tiny calves played round the boat for a little while. Some of the calves were really tiny, but this didn’t stop them trying out their breaching skills. Sailing into the shore we then went to hunt for tuna – after waiting patiently for a little while we were rewarded by some big breaches right under the cliffs.