Marine survey

We left home Monday night to board a Seatruck's ship taking containers Heysham to Dublin. After a few hours trying to sleep we went up to the bridge in the early morning to begin surveying for seabirds and cetaceans.
There were gannets, Manx shearwaters, kittiwakes and guillemots and then some common Dolphins!
You only see them for a minute but these ones were coming towards the bow and we saw two babies!
Arrived Dublin at 1030, but the docks are miles from the city so I withdrew to my bunk for a doze.
2.00 and we set off back to Heysham. It is an 8 hour crossing, so plenty more time to survey! This time we spotted a feeding group of gannets, and as we watched some Bottlenose dolphin appeared amongst them! More bird sightings followed, and some enormous Barrel jellyfish. These are around one metre long!
By 8pm the light was going and we retired to the drivers lounge until docking at 11pm.
It is fairly tiring but worth it for the moments of excitement !