23 September 2022

Species seen today: harbour porpoises, white-beaked dolphins, minke whales, humpback whale

Due to a storm coming in on the weekend, we've had to cancel our tours on Saturday and Sunday. So, today we had three tours and finally a day with no rain! The morning started our day well. We saw three of the four species we usually see in the bay. We saw a couple of pods of dolphins, some of which were very curious of the boat and came right up to us. The minke whales we saw were a little bit elusive but everyone on board managed to get a look. We also had a quick visit from some harbour porpoises as well when we were waiting for one minke to surface. Then on the midday tour, we headed to the same areas we had been so lucky in in the morning. We soon found minkes and dolphins. Again, the minkes were more focused on feeding than on interacting with us. The dolphins on the other hand were ready to play and spent a lot of time riding our waves at the bow of the boat. We were even treated to some jumping dolphins on this tour! In the afternoon, we had a suprise visit from our regular humpback whale of the summer, Mariupol. We spent the first part of our tour watching him. Then as more boats arrived, we headed off so that he wasn't overcrowded. Not long after leaving, we found an area with a lot of birds and a few minke whales! We watched the minkes feed until they seemed to have eaten all the fish and headed off to another area. This was when we turned back around to go see Mariupol a bit more as there were no boats with him anymore. We finished our tour with a great view of his tail, all to ourselves!