Day 6

On day 6 the Shark Camp interns had another boat trip on the Gemini 2, searching for Basking Sharks. We left Portmore pier at about one o'clock and crew from RTE radio in Dublin came with us. There was a big tide running so it was a fun ride getting out but not much good for spotting sharks. We did some transect searches for sharks, and dropped a secchi disk to obtain the maximum depth that plankton could photosynthesise at. We also did a plankton tow. There was plenty of plankton in the tow but still no sharks! We hugged the coastline to get a bit of  rest and saw some porpoises and a friendly seal.

Leah and that fin!

Finally we decided to head on out to Inishtrahull island to attempt to get in at the pier there for a walk on the island. It wasn't looking hopeful for sharks but just as we approached south of the island we saw our first glimpse of a fin. Then they were all around us and Rosemary and the skipper even saw one jump clean out of the water ( a full breach).We were so jealous! There must of been at least 20 basking sharks all round the island. We attempted to tag a few but it was proving difficult without the RIB.

We stayed with the sharks for as long as we could and then headed onto the island. Seal greeted us as we approached. We had made our own Geocache and left it on the Island. Geocaching is a worldwide treasure hunt game where you use a GPS to hide and seek containers of prizes and messages for players all over the world to find. Find out more info about is here http://www.geocaching.com/

On the way back home it started raining and we got soaked but we didn't mind because we found some more sharks to occupy our thoughts. We got back at half six (a bit late) but it was definitely worth it!

Basking Shark and Inishtrahull in background