Another amaising WOW course delivered!

Mother and calf bottle's at Newquay

Given the extremely pessimistic weather forcast for the week by the BBC/Met Office weather clowns, it looked like this weeks WOW cetacean course was going to be a real challenge to deliver.

surveying aboard "Sulaire"

As it happened, it was a dream, great people, great cetaceans and with a bit of organisation we worked with the weather to make sure the practical stuff was delivered . Thanks also to Steve Hartley for getting us out on his boat "Sulaire " so we had both land and boat based surveys,  for our gang of students.



Day one: we did the classroom ID stuff at Pembrokeshire College then trialled it at Ramsay Sound. Plenty of porpoises including some with calves gave everyone a chance to use their ID skills and the survey recording sheets.

Day two, a morning visit to Strumble and our keen students worked hard to "dig out" a few porpoises during quite tough conditions, in my humble opinion, a great test.



Strumble Porpoise

This was followed by biology lesson and test whilst the heavens opened in the afternoon and we worked in our cosy "Yellow Submarine" facility in the Ocean Lab, Fishguard Harbour.

After more survey lessons and tests we climbed into the Mini Bus and headed off to Newquay. The Bottlenose dolphins were showing as we arrived at the car park and we ended the day with a Dolphin spectacular from both boat and shore completing surveys from both locations.



L to R = Mary, Elfyn, Melissa, Hannah, Aaron, Sarah, Verena,  Moyrah, Powell,  Barbara. (and sitting), Eirianydd. 



Thanks again to : a great gang of students, support from Pembrokeshire College, Steve Hartley and Elfyn Pugh who participated as a student but also helped attract other ORCA members to the course (Mary and Mellissa) and Sea Trust volunteer Verena Bolender who helped in the delivery.

allthingsgood, Walrus!