What a
difference a day makes. In the last 24hrs the water temperature has plummeted
from 15 to 40C and the depth went from 4000m to 200m as we moved out
of the North Atlantic Drift and into the Labrador Current over the Flemish cap.
After being spoiled with sightings over the last few days things quietened
today with only two cetacean sightings and even then they were just blows in
the distance so we could not confirm a species id.
Whale Blow (Paddy O'Dwyer)
The birds
kept us busy for the morning with all three Skua species we have encountered
making an appearance Great Skua, Pomarine Skua and Long Tailed Skuas. There
were again high numbers of Pomarine and Longtails. We also had Manx Shearwaters
and a Tern species which was too far away for us to identify to species level.
The ever present Fulmars were around in great numbers and as if they knew we
were going to begin fishing, were hanging around the boat for most of the day.
Great Skua (Enda McKeogh)
In addition
to looking for birds and cetaceans we are also on the lookout for icebergs
after reports from Canada informing us that they will be present along the rest
of our journey to St. Johns.
Paddy thank you for keeping up with the blog (I know you are busy at night too). Really enjoying it. That blow photo: sharp shooting!
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