Wednesday 24th June
Leatherback turtles, Risso’s, common dolphins, porpoises, and sunfish!
This morning we had an Ocean Discovery trip in hot, sticky conditions and this afternoon we did a four hour Discovery Voyage with a bit more breeze. The water temperature is increasing quickly but the hot spell is due to slow down on Friday which is a good thing.
On this morning’s trip, we found several very hot seals round the island – their thick blubber means they are designed for conditions cooler than this. We then found a small pod of common dolphins a little bit further out, who were in quite a reserved mood and we didn’t want to bother them so left them to it after a few nice encounters. A bit further on we were really pleased to see a pod of harbour porpoises – it’s been several weeks since we saw any, and hopefully numbers will start increasing from now.
This afternoon’s trip was quite something. Shortly after leaving we had a fantastic encounter with some Risso’s dolphins, who were very breachy and sociable. Often it’s one dolphin in the pod doing the breaching, but this time there were two doing some synchronised leaps. Amazing to see! A bit further on we were astonished to see a leather back turtle 😮! This is the first one we have seen for 12 years. These incredibly rare reptiles are actually warm blooded, and are the only ones who can survive in UK waters. They migrate up western coasts during the summer feeding on jellyfish. And then later in the trip we had another encounter – honestly, you wait 12 years for a leatherback sighting and then two turn up at once. Not only that, but to add to the count we also had a really fun encounter with some common dolphins out near Land’s End, and we also had our first “magic porpoise” encounter of the season. This is when they circle the boat, repeatedly surfacing and making their “piffing” noises. We also saw an ocean sunfish, our first for a few days, which joined in the breaching party and decided to do a few jumps of its own.
What an incredible day on the water.