Holyhead-Dublin route - yesterday's report from Ian Coote

We are extremely fortunate in the support Stena Line have been most generously providing and we are now operating on both the Fishguard-Rosslare and the Holyhead-Dublin Irish Sea Routes. Many thanks to all the Stena crews and shore-side support that makes this all possible.
Next week we will be adding another route from Rosslare to Cherbourg in France.a really exciting new development! 
We also depend on experienced  Sea Trust volunteers such as Ian Coote, Katy Hobson and Janette Humphreys who were aboard the "Stena Nordica" for this survey. 
Here's Ian Cootes report;
  
The conditions for the outward leg of the survey were sea state 3, overcast, with good visibility. We had a steady number of all the usual seabirds seen with very little feeding activity observed. With the one instance of a number of birds active, Janette moved to the starboard side of bridge and was rewarded with a Minke Whale, close up to the ship. Katy and myself did see the animal from a distance as it surfaced several times again. This was the only sighting on this leg of the survey 
Conditions were similar for the return from Dublin, with the exception of a prolonged period of sea state 2. Again, scattered numbers of the usual bird species showing little activity, but we did have another Minke sighting and 4 individual Harbour Porpoise records (towards the Welsh Coast).

Ian