Wednesday 4th September

We  had a four hour followed by a three hour trip today in windy northerly conditions. Even so, we had some great sightings – during the morning we initially found some common dolphins then sailed southwards where we found two minke whales feeding among the bluefin tuna and shearwaters. As we sailed back towards the coast we found a large pod of harbour porpoises too. All this activity offshore made us rather late back! Fortunately on the three hour, there was lots more to be found closer to the coast in slightly more sheltered waters, though it was still windy and choppy. There was a mass of gannets visible a few miles to the east, where we found very large numbers of harbour porpoises. They were absolutely charging around after some very mobile fish schools, and in the waves, they were sending up a lot of white water. The gannets were spectacular too. Sailing west, we found some common dolphins doing exactly the same thing! Very difficult to get photos of, but there were quite a lot of them. There were two sleeping seals on the island as well.