North Sea Pelagics.

Amazing day on the sea.

Dad and I travelled north to Northumberland for the day as I had myself booked onto an offshore white beaked dolphin reseach trip. It felt amazing just to be back on the sea again! And that was before the animals started appearing ;)

Even before we reached the farne deeps (20 miles offshore) I spotted the first of 3 minke whales of the day. No matter how many of these I see I still feel amazingly privaleged to get a glimpse of these incredible mammels off our coastline! The first sighting was then followed by a period of nothing but a few seabirds and a sad looking decomposing dolphin.

The day was looking pretty poor on the dolphin front until we turned for home when Ben (the scientist) and I spotted some distant splashes and fins! Unfortunately they weren't the white beaked dolphins we were after but Atlantic White sided dolphins..a new species for me so i was grining like an idiot! I defy anyone not to grin like an idiot when dolphins appear though. They hung around the boat for a good 15 minutes before we decided we better head back to shore over an hour later than planned..

Fantastic. I love the sea.