Tour at 17:00
The wind had picked up... a lot! We sailed out to the area where we have been for the past few weeks, all the time sailing against some very big waves, so it was a rough ride out there. We slowed down the boat and spotted a Minke whale which surfaced a few times before going for a deep dive. As we looked around we started to notice some huge splashes all around us in the distance. The Minke whales were breaching all around us and suddenly one popped up just about 150m in front of the boat so we all got a great look at the whale! Throughout the trip we kept seeing breaching Minke whales the whole time and we saw 3-4 whales breaching quite close to us. A really unusual and fantastic trip, in spite of the rough weather conditions and a bit of seasickness ;)
Tour at 13:00
Our first sighting on this tour was a group of cute harbour porpoises. They are usually difficult to watch but today they showed some interest in the boat and swam around it. During the next hour we frequently spotted minke whales. They were all swimming calmly while feeding. We had a lot of good opportunities to watch them. At the end of the tour we found a group of white-beaked dolphins, perhaps four or five animals. This was a wonderful end to our whale watching tour on a rainy day!
Tour at 9:00
The weather was looking a bit grey and rainy this morning, but we soon came to a great area where there were plenty of feeding birds and plenty of lunge feeding Minke whales. We also spotted a group of harbour porpoises which we got a nice look at. At the end of the trip, as we were starting to head back to the harbour we spotted a big blow and as we were looking towards it, a Humpback whale breached high up out of the sea! We kept looking and again it breached, and the second time I think everyone saw it. A really spectacular sight and a great way to end the trip :)