Thar she blows.....

We had the chance to go whale watching out in Berkeley Sound.  We had an early start today, 9am on a Saturday!!  We went down to the jetty to board our board, the Speedwell, and off we went.  It certainly gave us a different view of Stanley, one that normally cruise ship passengers can see.

The pictures are not fantastic, as trying to focus and take a decent picture from a boat being rocked by waves is not easy!!

As we set off, a yacht crossed our stern

As we moved further out through the harbour, I was able to photograph Two Sisters at the other end of the harbour.

and here is a picture of our house, it's the wood clad semi detached bungalow in the dead centre of the picture.

As we carried on, we chugged past the Fishery Patrol vessel moored in the harbour

We left the harbour through The Narrows, which gave us our last view of Stanley for a couple of hours.

and on past Ordnance Point, with the old gun visible

 

 As we left the harbour and headed into Port William, there were some ships moored together, one was a tanker.

As we headed further out, we saw Cape Pembroke lighthouse standing out nice and clear

There was a large flock of cormorants, which then followed us for most of the journey.

We headed towards Kidney Island, and we were joined by a school of dolphins.  We could reach down and touch them as they swam along aside us.  I captured some video too.

As we approached Kidney Island, we could see some sea lions on the shore.

We then headed towards Berkeley sound, stopping to view a magellanic penguin colony, including some swimming in the water.

 

We reached Berkeley Sound, and began looking for the whales.  We heard them before we saw them.  When they "blow" for air, it is really noisy, and a plume of water goes 15ft in the air!  The crew did their best efforts to chase them down, and we got incredibly close to the whales.

 

During our trip out, Andrew Shearer, a maths teacher at FICS had been sat at the front of the boat, right on the bow.  We had hit some choppy water, and with a strengthening breeze, he managed to get soaked!

On the way back in, a new ship had taken up station in Port William, the MS Beluga Skysail.  There are several pieces of info and websites about the ship and the Skysail project, and how it save upto 35% of the oil used during a voyage!  Imagine a big boys kite, and you aren't far off the mark!

The rig on the bow is where the skysail is launched from.

As we landed back, we saw another cormorant in the harbour with its beak full of food.

And we arrived back at the jetty, alongside a rotting hulk, and our 3 hour excursion was over