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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dominique Verbelen" data-source="post: 1274186" data-attributes="member: 61495">hi,i am very pleased with the remarks of mike!at least one brit who seems to appreciate the huge risks ultimate pelagics took to offer us something that was not available on the market yet!and one has to be realistic: the expectations raised were - to a great extent - fulfilled, on each of the 3 up trips to the bay of biscayto be honest: i was very amused by all the british on board last year as the only issue they seemed to be very concerned about was whether the ship was in the british territorial waters or not ...at least the continental contingent took everything as it came and wasn 't blaming anyone for the lack of superb cetecean sightingsif anyone can control the weather: please, stand up and come along as that would be super!the bay is a stunning place to be in and unfortunately, the pride is now our best and only option to visit itif only there would be more companies willing to take the risk ultimate pelagics took 'cos this concept is so much better than whatever the pride of bilbao has on offer!i still keep wondering how it can be that most of the british found last years trip and the 2008 trip not good whereas the continentals on the same boat and with the same info provided by up found it very good ...sure; the trip departed from calais and calais might not be the best place to depart from as it takes quite some time to get to the interesting partfallmouth, plymouth, portsmouth might all be better ports of embarkation but then one needs british costumers to book for this tripluckily enough, the intrest from the continent was big 'cos if it hadn 't been for those bookers, the trip might have been cancelled (as there were only 50+ english on board)did i expect to see more on this years trip? sure! one always hopes for the best but out of my 9 trips in the bay, i got my best ever observation of a logging young bull cuviers, i never saw more adult sabines than on this trip, the pod of 3 fin whales we circumnavigated was really super, the pilot whales did put up a great show, having a sowerby's photographed still is a very rare event in the bay, the food and the staff were magnificent, the atmosphere in the lounges was super every night and the networking done on board will be beneficial for quite some projectsso once again: if up would decide to continue this story in one way or another, i feel pretty confident that flemmish, french and dutch alike will be there once moreas soon as our photo gallery is online, i will place the url on this threadand hopefully we might meet each other on the pride on september 7th (as we then will invade this ship again) or on the theme cruise on september 27 (hope i will be able to take time off at work as i truly did enjoy the company of adrian, laura, nigel, clive, emma and all the others of the joyful bdrp staff whose name i forgot)and yep: having guides of the cow on board of the pride has always been very amusing as well as people like glenn and john were always fun to be with!dominique</blockquote>

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