Beautiful babies and a bit of a surprise!

For once the weather gods were with us and as we left the shelter of Milford Haven aboard the Celtic Wildcat , the sun shone and the sea was reasonably calm. It was not long until we saw a few Gannets circling on the horizon and below them our first pod of Common Dolphins. And then our second , third,  fourth, on and on we went with pod after pod of dolphins many of which were either heavily pregnant or with very small calves some virtually newborn  calves or “Rugby Balls! as we call them!

It was a kind of spread out superpod with dolphins feeding and travelling as they overtook us all, heading  into the sun! A couple of what were probably Minke Whales were also glimpsed briefly but although we hung around we could not re-find them. As we sat quiet and motionless a mini tsunami  a few hundred yards long approached us from behind , caused by a wave of dolphins approaching . As they arrived dozens of mums with small calves stopped to show off their babies! All in all counting them accurately was impossible but over the course of the day we must have seen hundreds probably more than a thousand many of which were mothers with calves some with juveniles and some ready to calf.

There could be no better demonstration of how incredibly important our waters are to the wellbeing of breeding Common Dolphins which is why Sea Trust really needs your support in getting this important message over to the Welsh Government.  

More photos from the trip here

Stop Press! We saw what we thought was a particularly spectacular dolphin breaching in the distance, but we really did not expect this! A Thresher Shark - pretty rare in UK waters with 6 reported last year and just 2 in 2011. They are usually found in deep water and  not so close to the shore.