Thursday 15 October 2015

Super Ferry Animals ... Again!

Another Stena Europe survey! The first leg was undertaken in pretty good conditions with porpoises and a strange little group of unidentified dolphins that having looked at some pic's were probably Common Dolphins,They were muddling about ahead of us, a group of around five or six seen at distance and then as we approached dispersed and disappeared



About halfway out we had a nice but short Risso's encounter with a single mother and calf . Our expectations were high as we approached the Risso's Triangle (don't believe what you read in the papers Risso's are relatively common in  the Irish Sea!) but despite good viewing conditions and some really distant splashes we ended the first leg with no further sightings.
Day two began with areally excellent breakfast in the Truckers Bar and a good chat about the Rugby with Andrew and Declan. 
Outside we were faced with a short choppy sea and lots of glare which took us off effort. The Risso's Triangle/ Tusker Rock had some distant feeding gannets but although it looked like there would be feeding porpoises we just could not see them Although we were in a sea state 4 + but we still had some commons come into the bow and a few porpoises as we approached in towards Strumble, And indeed as we passed by Strumble she produced the Porpoises that should qualify it as a SAC.. As we moved into Fishguard Bay we were hoping for some Bottles but we just had to make do with a couple more "rare" Risso's to end the survey!
Massive thanks to the Stena Team, (land and sea) and our team Sea Trust Barbarella and Steve Rosser truly an A team!