September 2026 Whales

30 Sept

Written By me 2

There was an offer in the papers to get a mini cruise on the ferry I take to see whales. Whilst a lot of folks were there to take up the generous wine sampling offer, a lovely couple from Warwick also had the idea to see whales and had much better eyes then me - hence we did well :) Christine the ORCA rep on the ship for the month got a lot of people (some holding wine glasses!) to her whales talks and spotting sessions - by the Friday morning we were almost at the numbers we get on the ORCA trips in the summer.

We saw some fin whales closer than I’ve ever seen them - this one was maybe 500 metres away - blowing and lunge feeding.

We saw our first Dolphins just outside Plymouth

Lots of Gannets in the English Channel

We had several fly around the ship's mast s owe could get within a few metres of them

The first year Gannets have this great spotty pattern

Lots of Tuna including these young ones

English channel giving it some good sunset

And Biscay giving some good sunrise

THis Fin whale was around 400 metres away

Its got a notch on ots top fin which is a useful distinguishing feature

close up on that notch

on Thursday evening a fin surfaced very close to the ship - I couldn't zoom out quickly enough to get the back but it almost looked like a submarine coming up!