Dolphins?

[Alex Brown]

Since it was cloudy inland and on the coast today, we decided to go 25 miles offshore to the Smalls lighthouse to get some sunshine - what a cracking day it prooved to be

On arrival at the Smalls Lighthouse, Pembs Dive Charters were there with divers in the water so we stayed clear, there was also a little fishing boat working with pots around the back of the island too, so we decided to have lunch on the move on the way back.
About 5mins from the smalls, I left the engine on tickover ahead doing a few knots, and while we were minding our own business, I saw a shadow go under the boat, followed by another, and then another, and then <splash> from behind. From what I can tell, it would seem that these were dolphins that were playing around under the rib - great stuff....

On the way back, we stopped off at Grassholm to get some pics of the many many Gannets that were flying around - I'll put all these pics on the my gallery later on tonight or tomorrow.

Todays video can be streamed at 300kbps from:-
mms://media.ribseadrive.co.uk/cruise_22-05-04_smallest.wmv

The large video is 28meg - I'll upload that too sometime....

-Alex

[DJL]

Wow! - Fantastic pictures and video.

[Naked Dave]

Great photos......particularly satisfying taking them yourself!

[Keith Hart]

Blo**y hell! What great pictures. Thanks.

I think they are the 'Common Dolphin' (Delphinus Delphis) from the look of them. You can read more about this species here:

http://whales.gn.apc.org/dolphin3.shtml

Keith Hart

[Alex Brown]

Thanks for the comments folks, it was good to see them, especially since last year all we saw were porpoises that were camera shy

Yeah, Keith, looking through google lastnight on the 'difference between dolphins and porpoises' it does seem that they were the common dolphin - extremely curious, and quite playful.
It's certainly not something we see every day..... the next thing to see is a whale I think, not sure if we can find them in the Irish sea though.

I uploaded all yesterdays pics to
http://gallery.ribseadrive.co.uk/cruise-22-05-04

Thanks,

-Alex

[woot]

Superb pics Alex, I'm happy you had a great day but gutted I missed it. What were the conditions like? would I have made it out there in my little RIB? I'll be down for the Bank Holiday weekend so let me know if you are planning any trips out.

[woot]

For the divers out there, if you are unfamiliar with the Smalls as visited by Alex they are a superb site. If you have a RIB capable of getting there with divers it is well worth the trip. There is a resident seal colony and I have had the pleasure of diving with them. My wife and myself just sat on the bottom at 17m with our fins out in front of us and waited for them to get confident enough to nip our fins and even try to pull us along by the fins. Absolutely superb experience, not as easily accessible as the Farnes but just as good when you get there. Due to the distance offshore the vis is usually excellent. If anyone is considering a trip to the area for diving let me know and I'll do my best to help with info.

[Jonny Fuller]

We encountered some dolphins back in 01 on the way back from Plymouth, didn't get a lot of video, but it's enough to see they're not sardines.

Plymouth vid

[Louise]

Cool video.

[fatboy500]

Nice shots Alex,
I've just got back from a transatlantic sailing trip and the regular encounters with dolphins were one of the highlights. We also had a couple of orcas cruising with us at one point as well. The best bit was dolphins at night however. The bio luminescense (is that how you spell it ?) causes their wakes to light up at night. The first time we saw it we though we were being torpedoed as 6 lights shot past us! Sitting in the bow of the boat we had our own water based fireworks display as they streaked in and out of the bow leaving a 20ft trail of sparklers behind them !