Thick fog this morning. We got tickets for the 10:15 boat to St Martin’s. We’d booked a 1pm seal snorkelling trip from St Martin’s. While drinking a coffee on the quay waiting to board the ferry R received a text message from Viv at Scilly Seal Snorkelling saying they may not be able to run the trip due to the weather, but they’d let us know at midday.
We went to St Martin’s anyway. The ferry landed at Lower Town. We walked up the road through Middle Town to Higher Town.
A marsh harrier flew over and was then mobbed by crows. We walked around the headland a bit, and then Viv called to say that the seal snorkelling would go ahead.
We got a quick lunch (lobster roll, pasty) in the bakery cafe. Lots of fat sparrows mobbed us, used to getting an easy meal.
We went to the seal snorkelling shed down next the the quay.
We met a nice family of five who would be doing the trip with us. It was the parents’ 30th Wedding anniversary trip. They’d been to Scilly before, but this was the first time they’d brought their daughters with them. We were all given wetsuits, boots, gloves, fins, masks and snorkels, and we changed into the wetsuits next to the shed.
Then we got on the boat and did a fast five minute trip out to a small rocky island.
After some basic instructions we went over the side.
We spent 50 minutes in the water. Lots of curious seals nibbling at fins, some jellyfish and fish. We were all pretty cold when we got out.
When we got back to shore we got changed and dry and had an hour before the boat to St Mary’s, so we went up a track to Little Arthur Farm Cafe for refreshments.
The fog had come back down and it was drizzling, and the boat back was cold and choppy.
R queued at the Co-Op for refreshments and J collected our pre-ordered crab and lobster dinner from the chippy on the way past.
