Back in Blighty

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The ferry back from Bilbao to Portsmouth gave us far more than we had bargained for. Our ears pricked up when shortly after departure we had an announcement on the Pride of Bilbao (our ferry) from the ships Wildlife Officer that he was imminently to give an introductory talk on our whale watching opportunities in the Bay of Biscay. We keenly clambered up to the top deck and listened hard through the noise of the ships engines and sea breeze to understand how to be a successful whale watcher. Enthused and clutching our hired pair of binoculars, putting our expectation levels to zero, we set about spotting the largest creatures on the planet. Stood amongst what appeared to be a fairly seasoned breed of whale watchers and a forest of telescopes we were not alone in our pursuit. Soon we would cross an ocean shelf in the Bay of Biscay which would put us in deep water (up to 3000 meters depth) and with it into whale territory. We crossed the shelf and to our total amazement perfectly on cue ahead of the ship half way to the horizon a Finn Whale blow was clear with the naked eye. This was shortly followed by a second blow from another whale not far from the first one. We stared at each other in total amazement. We had just been witness to the exploits (or as the Wildlife Officer nicely put it, the 12 metre high sneezes) of the second largest creature on Earth and we were only five minutes into our whale spotting career. This was certainly vastly more entertaining than being sat squinting at the garish yellow of a Ryan Air cabin. The wildlife highpoint of our three months of wanders which included; Pine Martin, Cantabrian Chamois, Kingfisher, and Griffon Vultures, was still waiting in the wings. It arrived in the shape of a Northern Bottlenose Whale which surfaced and rolled around in the water thirty metres from the ship. The scale and presence of these fantastic whales is gob smacking and when we heard about the destruction humankind is bringing to these fellow inhabitants of Earth tear jerking.

The arrival onto the horizon of Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower signalled time on our Spanish jaunt. A quick kit change and just over a week back in the UK with family and on September 1st we fly Nicaragua bound, to continue the adventure.

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Comments

[Shaun]

Welcome Back
Hi Steve and Gina, Welcome back to Blighty...I expect you'll both like rest, but if you fancy a beer let me know!!! See you soon Shaun and Adriana x