They're in...

On Tuesday I did some more liaising with people in the Department of Environment, Food, and Agriculture, and also with the Department of Infrastructure responsible for Harbours to sort out permissions for where the C-PODs will be placed... getting there. Shortly after lunch a viking longboat made its way past the breakwater to moor up in Peel harbour. This is Dragon Harald Fairhair, the largest replica ever built, and named for the King who unified Norway, on a journey from Norway to Liverpool.

Rowing past the breakwater

Heading in to harbour

With poor weather on Wednesday the day was spent in the office, with an evening trip to the pub to watch some live music for the start of Yn Chruinnaght, which means the gathering, and is an inter-celtic festival. The weather was a little better on Thursday, so Jen and I spent two hours watching at Marine Drive, Douglas, before heading to the ferry terminal to pick up Rosie returning from her graduation ceremony. We finished the evening with a BBQ at Fenella beach and some open mic music in the pub. Friday was spent finalising details for imminent C-POD deployment as well as reading up on the software used for processing and analysing the data I will collect.

Saturday saw the return of Douglas carnival, after many years absence. However, the weather didn't seem too happy to see it back and we spent the day sheltering from the rain in our gazebo. This was the first outing for our new banner, which seemed to attract people's attention and encourage them over to talk to us. Despite the poor weather we still spoke to a lot of people about our work and helped to spread the word about cetaceans around the Isle of Man.

The new banner

Douglas carnival stall

Sunday was dry again, so Rosie and I opened out our soggy gazebo to dry in the sun. We then headed down to the House of Manannan to listen to more music and watch some traditional dancing as part of the Yn Chruinnaght festival.

Rosie and I headed south on Monday to conduct some land watches, whilst Jen watched at Niarbyl. We saw a few harbour porpoises during an hour at Port St Mary, then nothing in one and a half hours at Calf West. We then moved to survey Calf East for three hours and saw lots of porpoises, a minke whale, and leaping Risso's dolphins! It was a very pleasurable day spent soaking up the sun and enjoying the cetaceans. The evening was spent on final sorting and check of C-PODs and ropes ready for deployment on Tuesday, finally!

Harbour porpoise

Tuesday morning I headed to the office to start the C-PODs then loaded everything on to the boat, a little tricky as it was moored down a set of steps which meant getting the weights down took a little effort. We headed out from about 11 and made for the first deployment site to the west of the Calf of Man, before deploying the second pod near to Port St Mary. All went pretty well, so it is a case of wait and see now, until I retrieve the C-PODs in a few weeks to check everything is working OK. After successfully deploying the pods we made the most of being back on the boat with a good sea state and conducted a survey. Even though thick patches of fog made the visibility very poor in places we still managed to see a lot of harbour porpoises and a group of probably around 20 Risso's dolphins, including some juveniles, dispersed over quite a large area and apparently feeding. It was great to be back on the water, and felt good to finally get the C-PODs deployed - here's hoping they actually detect some cetaceans!

Low light levels made for tricky photography

Two Risso's surface together

From Wednesday to Sunday I headed home for some family events. On Sunday evening I flew back to the Isle of Man and on the way back to Peel from the airport managed to spot my third hen harrier so far. This one was receiving a little bit of a mobbing from some corvids, and flew very close to the car, a beautiful bird to see.