Sunday 8 March 2009

Carvery and porpoises.

It was a nice easy start to the day, we were in no rush to go and watch the footie as todays weather has been gale force 8 or more and heavy showers.
Some good breaks between some of the showers, but man you sure knew about them when they rattled through the islands at a rate of knots, very impressive!
We went out to lunch, not the Mermaid as planned, they were all full up, seems the deal was to good to miss.
However a drive into town revealed that the Bishop and Wolf were also doing a carvery and boy what a carvery it was!
There was a selection of meats, I had Sirloin beef,roast pork,roast beef,and roast lamb too.
Added to that all the veg you could want,carrots,parsnip,swede,roast potatoes and a yorkie pud with gravy to top it off, also a selection of freshly prepared sauces such as apple and mint sauce.
Wow I should have taken a picture because you wouldn't believe how much was on my plate!!Oh I had a couple of slices of each meat available I should add!
We knew that a big ,lunch was on the cards so we were suitably hungry and there was not much left when we had all finished, I can highly recommend it!
I think for the 5 of us including a drink each it was £33, so not too bad when you consider the amount of food consumed!
After lunch there was no doubt in my mind that we needed to stay out for a bit, but I think we were all feeling a bit full so we went for a drive.
We ended up at Deep Point, not really sure why but that's where we headed!
When we got there it was beautifully sunny and quite sheltered under the cliffs.
We could see plenty of Gannets about I counted 10 at first then noticed another group of 7 or so.
While watching a huge ship on the horizon and trying to get a pic the Gannets were constantly flying through my viewfinder.
On closer inspection and well spotted by Brandon, we noticed some more activity in the sea.
Just about where the Gannets were diving in right in front of us there was definitely something else in the water.
First thoughts turned to Dolphins, sure enough we had all seen a few fins here and there.
On closer inspection of my photographs and watching intently for nearly an hour I decided that these "Dolphins" were actually Porpoises because of their shy behaviour and size differences.
We saw at times 6 different porpoises clearly moving around a shoal of fish, the sea was turning oily in the area where the Porpoises were eating.
It was a great spectacle to watch, and we felt very privileged to witness the event.
The pics are OK but the Porpoises were very fast and only appeared briefly before disappearing for 5 minutes again!
After we had watched them for an hour we decided to carry on our drive and went down to the ducks , quickly feeding them before heading down to the Mermaid car park hoping to catch some waves going over the wall.
The tide wasn't really high enough for anything like that, but seeing the Cyclone leaving the quay presented a good photo opportunity and I followed her until she was out of sight you can get a great idea of the wave height by the amount she disappeared in the troughs between the swells.
After that we headed home to chill out for the rest of the day.
So a really good day off and now its time for bed again and the start of another busy week.

2 comments:

  1. Hi George,

    Been a while cos me satellite dish has been playing up. That's a mean pic of the Cyclone in a trough, I'm well impressed.

    Cheers, Paul

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  2. Hey Paul.
    Great to have you back online mate!
    Missed your updates.
    It was great watching the Cyclone tackle the elements was probably gale 8 at the time, a squally shower was just approaching.
    Cheers George

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