Celtic Wildcat in the Celtic Deep!

Our Aug 10th Wildcat Survey just managed to catch the remains of the high pressure system that hovered fleetingly over the Irish Sea at the end of the week . It was sunny and as we left the shelter of the haven we got off to a good start with three porpoises. Although it got a bit choppy further out it was still worth heading way out to the Celtic Deep in search of Fin Whales.
Unfortunately we did not connect but had several excellent Common Dolphin encounters. A couple of the larger pods (35-40 ) had very small calves which came in to bowride us. Are the Fin Whales here this year? lets hope we get another chance to find out! We did mange to connect with A Minke Whale , (perhaps two ) which gave brief views, as did a Blue Shark.
A small Ocean Sunfish also flip-flapped past us, a first for several of our crew. They are one of my favourite seacritters and although not particularly rare they can be elusive, so nice to get one for our passengers
As usual at this time of the year the Gannetry on Grassholm was awe inspiring and several basking seals were a nice finish to an exhilerating trip in which we covered just under 100 miles of ocean! Click on the Dolphin for more pics from the trip. Thanks again to Nick o' Sullivan, Celtic Wildcat Skipper for getting us all safely out there and back!