Following the excitement of the surveyors seeing a minke whale when they were on the route, an amazing 20 passengers were lucky enough to see a minke as we left the Sunderland coastline. Julia had a great view and received an ORCA sightings certificate to remember her first whale sighting.
The ORCA Centre has been just as busy as ever, during half term and had a mix of all nationalities. The most common surprise is that all the animals on the back wall and the Gannet above the passengers heads are lifesize!
The lovely Maisy made a beautiful Jellyfish during her sailing, whilst we kept an eye out for any dolphins on the horizon!
Following a conversation with Captain Lars Skjold-Hansen he informed me that there is another wind farm under construction in Ijumuiden highlighted here. This may explain why we haven’t had that many sightings on the Amsterdam side, apart from a few harbour porpoises. The noise of the construction of a wind farm can travel over 50 miles and may damage marine mammal ear drums.
Following a busy few weeks onboard I was lucky enough to see the bottlenose dolphin pod as we were approaching the mouth of the Tyne this morning. I have handed over to Ruth now for the beginning of June and am sure that so long as sea states are calm our sightings will continue to improve.
I have been informed by officers on the bridge that they have seen dolphins breaching as late as 10pm CET so went up to the bridge one evening, after ORCA activities and was lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins just as the sun was setting!
Good luck Ruth 🙂
Enjoy your fortnight on board
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