Day 2 - Orca Spotting

We had an excellent night sleep in our bijou cabin. Around 10am we left the cabin & bought a coffee in the ferry’s Tapas restaurant which we had with a croissant bought from home. (Jackie had read reviews to say that the food was really expensive on the ferry with a full English breakfast being €19, hence we brought our own food, when in fact the full English actually cost the very reasonable €8.50). Whilst having breakfast, we briefly spotted,out of the window, a dolphin or huge fish in the water.

After breakfast we headed up to the sun deck and we were surprised to see that we were so close to land. We were just passing the French coastal town of Porspoder, which is in the north western corner of Brittany.

We also found a man looking out to sea with a pair of binoculars, a long lensed camera around his neck and a blue tabard with the grand title of ‘Orca Spotter’ across the front. I asked Mr Orca Spotter if he had seen anything & he was just telling us that he had seen a pod of about 20 Harbour Porpoises in the distance, when I said “Like that one down there?” Immediately below us was a porpoise that surfaced a couple of times before disappearing in our wake. Upon this sighting, Mr Orca Spotter bellowed “Harbour Porpoise” a couple of times for the benefit of the other passengers. I didn’t manage to get a photo of it.

After helping Mr Orca Spotter do his job, we had a wander round and found a sign with information about the species of dolphins & whales we could possibly see on the crossing, including Orcas, particularly in the Bay of Biscay.

It was an overcast sky, but regardlessly we pulled up 2 plastic reclined chairs & watched France and a few assorted islands pass by. Disappointingly we didn’t see any more sea life, but we did see clusters of small brown birds that were awkwardly attempting to rest on the sea presumably whilst on their migration north. We also spotted ‘tw*t’ who true to form had a special cabin on the 9th deck.

At lunchtime Jackie brought up a bladder of wine & some sausage rolls, which we completely consumed throughout the afternoon in the now beating sun. Around 6pm Jackie informed me that she had sun block cream in her bag, which was probably about 6 hours too late. At 7.15pm, we finally called it a day & retreated to our cabin….me with a bright red face & Jackie with strap marks. We slept & watched Netflix through the evening and night.

Song of the Day - From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea by The Cure.Read more