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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pandachris" data-source="post: 1916460" data-attributes="member: 29914">Our farewell to the PoB yesterday was a bit of a disappointment. The outbound leg was enjoyable because we were getting dolphins every few minutes from around 16:00, mostly approaching from the sides and not being seen on Monkey Island. Mainly Common, with a few Bottlenosed Dolphins. Birds were ok, with Sabines the highlight for us.Coming back we had a pod of five large dolphins (Bottlenosed again by their speed - do Risso's ever move quickly?) and not much else, for hours and hours. One of our loose group of four saw a Cuvier's late on, I saw a blow about a thousand miles away, and only one and the birds were just not there. Reports of a few Grey Phalaropes that we didn't see. From about 14:00 until close of play we saw just one Arctic Skua and one imm. LBB plus a very tired Reed Warbler that might have been flushed by the small passerine that bounced off Graham's hat as it dropped out of the sky. The Reed Warbler came from the lifeboat that this bird flew into but definitely wasn't the same bird. Did we see a Yellow Wagtail as well? I think so. Not much to show for seven hours of effort and the worst day of the 9 we've spent on the boat. Yesterday was a bit better for birds although not great - at least there were Gannets to look at - didn't see a single one on Tuesday. Easterlies up to force seven might have had something to do with that.Good company though. I don't know if Brian from Kent or Graham from Sussex are BFers but their company helped enliven some of the duller moments and the memory of the bloke who came up to us as the sun was being reflected from the cliffs of Dorset and asked "Is that Dover?" will stay with me for years. I think we'll miss the boat and can't see the Santander route being anything like as good.</blockquote>

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