We met up at the shore office in Ilfracombe and we were also joined by today’s Wildlife Officer (David), and with our tickets in hand, we proceeded to join the boarding queue.

The ferry was very busy, with a half-marathon on the island the next day there were lots of campers for the challenge, MS Oldenburg was at max capacity and the Devon weather was lovely. After embarking we made our way to the bridge, Captain Paul Gyurgyak welcomed us onto the bridge and into the back room to let us get our survey forms and equipment ready whilst they took the ship out the harbour.

We stepped out onto the bridge to almost perfect conditions for observations. We had our first input of the day, a beautiful Fulmar flying over the front of the boat, followed closely by some Herring Gulls, Gannets and a Guillemot in quick succession. This was followed with a glimpse of a Harbour Porpoise but being small we soon lost sight of it. With the sun shining behind us and a sea state of three, we pushed on to Lundy. A pod of five Common Dolphins suddenly appeared ahead of us, unfortunately they were not interested in us, and we passed with them swimming around 150 metres off our port side but close enough for all the visitors to see. Then, up ahead Rick saw a Grey Seal bottling, which was some distance from Lundy, but as we neared, it woke up and dived.

We had more Gannet, some Razorbill, Guillemot, a Manx Shearwater and a Shag, before we arrived shortly after midday to glorious sunshine and clear skies.

We packed up and headed up to the top of the island which was on form, with lots of flowers and insects out, many of the breeding birds young had fledged. Before we made our way up, one of the most fascinating things to see were the huge numbers of jellyfish in the landing bay. We saw loads of them, hundreds of moon jellyfish, some large compass and blue jellyfish and even a few comb jellies which were the size of a hand, with an educated guess they looked like Common Northern Comb Jelly Bolinopsis infundibulum, a comb jelly found around Devon and Cornwall this time of year, with flashing bioluminescent strips down the lobes.

After a lovely walk on the island in the warm sunshine, we made our way back to the landing bay in readiness for our departure. We departed Lundy at 4:30 pm, again with the sun behind us and with a force 2 sea state, we had very good conditions for viewing. As we progressed towards Ilfracombe we had a smattering of the same bird species, and a single kittiwake. We also observed many lines of Moon Jellyfish blooms with thousands of individuals in each group before arriving safely back at Ilfracombe Harbour.

Our thanks to captain Paul Gyurgyak and his crew, and Landmark Trust for their continued support.

Rick Morris and Hazel Munt, Research Surveyors for MARINElife (Registered Charity No. 1110884; Registered Company No. 5057367)

Weather: wind NW 2-3, sea state 2-3, mostly sunny