The warm sunshine is bring the phytoplankton to the surface waters and this is attracting the Basking Sharks. We encountered three “Baskers” this afternnon on the south side of Sherkin Island all good sized animals of around 7 metres long. It is lovely to start to get regular sightings of these huge animals…the second largist fish in the world!
Ian O’Driscoll phoned through a possible sighting of Killer Whales today but searches by another boat this morning did not reveal this species…later this afternoon however, WWWC encountered a group of Risso’s Dolphins between Cape Clear and The Fastnet Rock and Lighthouse heading east from The Mizen Head. It is likely these were the animals seen this morning and thought to be Killer Whales. They were all large animals with very large dorsal fins and are the species most commonly confused with Killer Whales.
We were stopped by a small boat during this afternoon tour who had been around The Mizen and they said they had seen many more animals earlier in the day including some very young Risso’s Dolphins. A lovely sighting of this unusual species.
ENDS
Seeing those majestic animals swimming around our boat was a very special and unforgettable experience. Thank you Captain Nic!
It was a pleasure Bettina and Jens. We are VERY lucky here in West Cork with some of the marine species we get to view…