At last, we got out on the Cartlett Lady!

After some maintenence issues and unreliable and conflicting weather forecasts, I plumped for a Sunday trip (yesterday) and so our crew and passengers arrived at Neyland Marina with high hopes!It was dead calm as we set off but a small breeze sprang up as we headed out of the Haven. It was the top of a big tide and as we passed out of the "Heads" into the open sea, there was some small waves (SS2) not exactly the flat calm I had hoped for, and the sun had disappeared behind some high cloud. We motored out heading west, wondering where the dolphins were until almost an hour into the trip a small pod came to join us, breakingthe duck. It’s always a relief to get some dolphins under your belt when you have clients with expectations. About a mile off the "Smalls Light" we detoured to have a look. It began to drizzle and the sea was geting a little lumpy and i began to wonder if i had made a wrong call. "WHALE!" sevearal of us shouted in unison, as a Minke Whale surfaced about a hundred metres off our bow. And then another, quite close and so it went on for about twenty minutes with whales circling around us; sometimes very close and sometimes further off. It was hard to know which way to look, particularly for the photographers! After that encounter the smiles on everybodys faces took away any doubts i had about a wrong call! It got a bit more gnarly as we moved into and along the Celtic Deep for several miles, until some time after, We came across a nice big pod of around sixty mainly mothers and calves. another highlight for our paying guests. The sea conditions were becoming uncomfortable and so we decided to head back, eventually arriving off the Grasholm gannet colony after picking up a couple of small dolphin pods, on the way. The sadly depleted Gannet colony is still a splendid wildlife spectacle, well worth stopping off for, and a great end of day finale! All in all a good trip, good data collected, and contented paying guests...result!  See here for Rich Crossen’s video of the day.