Whales, Dolphins & Mars Bars...

Yesterday saw us spending a beautifully sunny morning hunting hard for some large cetaceans.  After a well earned break in our favourite isolated spot we where running out of time when the shout of whale came from a passenger!  We tried hard to find this elusive whale and had almost packed up and headed for home when a shout from our great friend who is now helping aboard the research vessel Silurian from the HWDT of whale and we had two whales come right under the boat, we didn't know which one to look at!  They circled us a few times before moving off, what an incredible sight!    The important thank you to all the crew of the Silurian came with two mars bars passed over to keep them all going, thanks guys.

The second trip of the day the sea had picked up, but shouts from the mast of huge splashes in the distance did not disappoint!  After working our way gently towards a large number of diving gannets amongst a plume of spray we had literally a few hundred common dolphins screaming towards us!  Bow-riding and breaching around the boat for nearly 30 minutes we had a spectacular show from some very playful dolphins!   Once they had moved off we then realised on the horizon there must have been many hundred more, with perhaps 100 gannets diving over a mile away into massive breaching eruptions, just how large was this group of dolphins?  They had decided to head north at speed now and we could not begin to keep up with them, when they decide to leave they are on the horizon very quickly!  

Time for home, but what an awesome end to a long day.  We did spot one dolphin with a damaged dorsal, but unfortunately i need to keep honing my camera skills, didn't manage to get this animal in any shots!

James

Skipper