Day 8 Iceberg’s ahead.

This morning as we were going up to the crows nest we were told to keep an eye out for icebergs and growlers. Growlers are bits that have broken off the main iceberg and can be more dangerous as they are not picked up by radar. The conditions were good for spotting the icebergs with low swell and light winds making it easy to spot anything on the surface. The problem was the fact that it was very hazy and our visibility was limited to a few kilometres. Sure enough shortly after starting we got a call to say that an iceberg had been picked up on the radar. Not long after we could see it through the haze and it was big! 

 You bring the jack and coke, we'll bring the ice (Paddy O'Dwyer)

 Despite spending most of the day looking ahead of the ship we did manage to record a few sightings. On three separate occasions we spotted blows but they were too distant for a proper species id. Enda did manage to capture an image with his new shooting from the hip method of photography. I must admit that over the last few days this technique seems to be working very well. 

Numbers wise it was a quiet on the bird front today. But we still had 6 different species Kittiwake, Manx Shearwater, Pomarine Skua, Long Tailed Skua, Herring Gull and our old friends the Fulmars. 

 Long Tailed Skua (Enda McKeogh)

We should be in St. Johns shortly after midday tomorrow all going well so it will be our last day of sightings. Hopefully it will be full of cetaceans, birds and a few icebergs at a distance.