Wednesday 29th July

It was warm today but cloudy, with a light westerly breeze. On this morning’s Ocean Discovery we went looking for bluefin tuna further offshore, and they were there but extremely mobile. They were accompanied by fast moving groups of feeding seabirds, including gannets, Manx shearwaters, kittiwakes and other species of gulls. We also found two groups of common dolphins and saw several seals round the island.

On this afternoon’s four hour trip we headed for the horizon again, following birds who kept getting further and further away. They were incredibly tantalising though and we kept seeing the white water of feeding tuna underneath. Eventually it settled in one place long enough to get some tuna busting the surface very near the boat, our first this year. We also encountered four separate groups of common dolphins, briefly saw some harbour porpoises and finally three ocean sunfish. It was a slow burner of a trip but a good one.