We steamed back up onto the Jones Bank in mirror-calm conditions, and saw a couple of great shearwaters. One of these was flew past without flapping its wings once, even though there wasn't a breath of wind for it to catch. How do they do that? The second was sitting on the sea (it obviously couldn't do "that") and it looked odd - we hazarded any number of guesses as to what it was before it was close enough to see properly. The third flew past while we were having a "scientific team" photo taken. I think we ruined the last shot as all the birders were suddenly looking and pointing out to sea. Once a birder, always a birder. Anyway, here's the group shot below.
After the group photo, we took the recording equipment to the box for the last time, and did a brief spell of observation. We suddenly picked out a pod of killer whales, far enough ahead of the ship for Mark to race up to the bridge to phone down to the main laboratory and let everyone else know. As he put the phone down, Clare had already scaled three sets of steps and run the length of the ship to get to the front viewing positions. She has never seen orcas after all her years of cetacean watching, so this was a truly special moment for her, especially as a bull orca showed itself well to the appreciative gallery. That's how you follow a day like Friday!
Young male orca (per Matt)We had to disassemble the bird boxes and pack away all our other kit as Sunday would be a very busy day.
Some of us managed to go onto deck first thing on the Sunday morning. I saw a Cory's shearwater first thing, just south of Lizard Point. There were a few Manx shearwaters and storm-petrels about, but no basking sharks or Balearic shearwaters to see. But it was a cracking morning, and a gannet flew past the bows, touching distance away, and glided gently toward Falmouth harbour. Perhaps it was trying to guide us home. Probably not! As I write this, the pilot is on board and we're about to throw the ropes ashore and all our bags and equipment, possibly not in that order. We will fly home to Aberdeen this evening and back to our normal lives that await us.
It has been a fantastic cruise. An interesting start, a fairly tedious middle and a tremendously exciting ending.
Dawn light on the bridge of RSS James Cook
A few gratuitous sunset photos
Signing off. Over and out
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