Back in July 2016 I was given 2 very amazing presents when I left my teaching job. One was a years adoption of a giraffe at a local zoo and the other was a trip around Falmouth on a rib wildlife spotting. Both were absolutely perfect. It’s like they knew me very well or something 🙂

Yesterday was the first day of July 2017 and 13 days before the trip expired we finally managed to go on the trip. We had previously tried to go on the trip at the beginning of June but it was cancelled due to poor weather, but wow we were blessed this day with gorgeous sunshine and some amazing wildlife.

The trip was lead by a company called Orca Sea Safaris. They were really helpful during booking and great on the day too. What this trip did do is make us realise, again, how little people explore the places where they live. I knew this already, but since traveling we’ve made more of an effort and more plans to travel around our own city, county, country and continent. I didn’t know any of the history that we were told whilst on the boat. I didn’t know that Pendennis castle has a twin in St. Mawes castle, that they are exactly 1 mile apart, built during the rein of Henry the 8th and designed to protect the 3rd deepest natural harbour in the World from attach by the French and Spanish.

As we zoomed past St. Mawes we ended up at a really interesting looking lighthouse. Turns out this lighthouse was used in the credits for Fraggle Rock.

On our 2 hour boat trip we saw cormorants, gannets and a peregrine falcon, as well as a HUGE pod of common dolphins. We were headed off shore and a very friendly fisherman boat signalled for us to come over. They gave us information about the pod of dolphins and we headed off to see if we could find them. They were working together to catch fish and we were told we’d find the pod below the gannets dive bombing into the water from above, taking full advantage of the hunting skills of the dolphins.

The next hour was amazing. Simon and I have both have been fortunate enough to have quite a few dolphin experiences in the past, with Simon even diving with dolphins in Ascension, but neither of us had ever seen such a large pod before, or spent that long watching them.

Here are some pictures of our dolphin experiences while travelling…

Hector’s dolphin in Akaroa, New Zealand

Bottlenose dolphins – Bay of Islands, New Zealand

A pod of dolphins near Byron Bay, Australia.

We also saw a pink bottlenose dolphin in Koh Tao, Thailand, but didn’t get a photo of that one.

On our trip now, the dolphins past by us multiple times with our boat keeping a respectful distance away at all times. The skipper thought there were up to 30 common dolphins in the water, which was just unbelievable.