From porpoise to purple sandpipers.

Walking a beautiful beach with friends and the dogs this morning, theoretically before work, changed the plan for my day. I had been lost in playing with images of polar bears in city streets but the day had a pearl grey quality about it, shadows flattened by low cloud, not cold not warm. Ffion said that the boats were coming out of the water soon and I asked what was about at the moment. "Oh, you know, porpoise, seals still, and pups." So at 12 I found myself wrapped up warm in scarf and hat and gloves with a long lens ready to sit on a boat for an hour.

The sea was flat calm, or so it seemed.

Lucy was working as slip-master ( or should that be slip-mistress?)

Ffi was skipper, Dave was crew.

So off we went on adventures to look for things.

And we found porpoise, so many and very close. They swam towards the boat, curving dark out of the water until they were all around rising into the ocean of air to breath and dipping down again in the hunt for fish. We found seals, including one so fresh to the world that he was still bloodied and the afterbirth was being taken care of by sharp beaked cleaners, gulls and a raven. There were peregrine and buzzard. The rocks around the back of the island were soft green with lichen, and gold and also black from algae ( or was it lichen) I can't remember, that thrived on the salt spray.

I watched seals swimming, hauling out onto the beach, golden and gray and dappled and stone coloured. 

So once again this year I have to say thanks again to Voyages of Discovery. I have had three trips now this year and have seen such beautiful creatures from porpoise to purple sandpipers. Bliss.

 

If you want to follow the adventures of Voyages of Discovery you can do so on Facebook. They post photographs of current sightings throughout the summer and some are just so beautiful. This year's highlights included the double flip dolphin leap and the underwater dolphin film. Don't think anyone managed to get film of the whales breaching, but they did see them. All the people I sent out on trips saw dolphins and came back to land so excited. Worth a trip to Pembrokeshire, definitely. 
( And if you click on one of the images here it should show a slide show of larger images)