Tuesday, 25 August 2009

Tour at 17:00

This trip really proved how unpredictable the wild nature can be. We headed out to the same area where we had the Minke whales earlier today and we spotted one or two Minke whales but just surfacing once then we couldn't see them again, so we headed out further. We saw a group of harbour porpoises for a short while but then we lost them too! We sailed really far and searched and searched but unfortunately we weren't able to find any more whales so we invited our passengers to come again with us on a complimentary tour, because the whales that we (the crew) saw, were probably not spotted by many of the passengers. One thing that was quite interesting about this tour was that we spotted quite a few puffins! They have left the island now and most of them have headed far out to sea, but some of them seem to be sticking around the bay. Like I said, wild nature is really unpredictable and each of our trips is absolutely unique!

 

Tour at 13:00

The weather this afternoon was perfect. Again we didn't sail for long until we spotted the first Minke whale. This individual was really curious; it was surfacing less than 5m away from us and swimming underneath the boat. We stayed with it for about 20 minutes and I think everyone was able to get some good photographs from this great sighting. Throughout the tour we spotted several more Minke whales as well as a group of Harbour Porpoises. Another highlight of the trip was when we sailed to an area where there were 100-200 feeding Gannets. They were often flying and diving really close to the boat, a really fantastic experience once again.

 

Tour at 09:00

We set off this morning with some wind but a nice calm sea. We didn't have to sail very far til we spotted a few Minke whales which we observed for a while. In the same area as the Minke whales there was a group of Harbour Porpoises which we got a chance to watch for a short while as well. We headed a little further out and there we found a really nice group of White-beaked dolphins which were swimming really close to the boat and we could see them just beneath the surface almost underneath the boat they were so close! A fantastic experience :)