Skomer Island continued continued

We were lucky to get across to Skomer Island as the day we arrived - our one day possible there was a huge crowd. I was told that the ticket office opened at 8-30am and that there were three boats running. In th event there were 70 people there by 8am - the ticket office opened erly and they put on an extra crossing. We arrived at 8-30, lined up and eventually were sold tickets to the 11-30am crossing. While we were waiting we met others who had arrived at 9-30 and by then no tickets to the island were left. Many missed out.

We were very lucky with the weather - it was [quite] warm and sunny although the breeze stripped a few degrees off you easily.

When our boat arrived at Skomer we walked basically around the entire island obviously looking for every bird species that we could. We did see a variety of passerine birds, so Skomer is not just about the seabirds.  We lunched soon after arrival at the old farm house before walking north and then around the western side of the island.

After leaving at 5pm my cunning plan entailed a fish n chip supper before our booked evening cruise at 7pm. The local village had nothiing openend so our chip run turned to a sprint to a not-so-close town. Narrow lanes are not an encouragement to speed so despite the emergency of our situation I did my best to drive both wisely and safely. By the time we finally arrived with our bounty we were basically late. We had to forget chips and simply scoffed the fish as we ran down to the already boarded boat. I apologised to all on board on behalf of New Zealand.

The boat trip finally got started a full 8 minutes after it was due to get away because of our errant fish n chip endeavour.

The cruise was called the Seabird Spectacular and it was a product, for once, very aptly named. And the flying flocks of Puffins, Guillemots and Razobills plus a few others quickly made folks forget our late departure. The commentary was interesting and the atmosphere on the boat was fun and friendly.

The waters were still and calm, the islands beautiful and the birds amazing. It was a fitting finale for a fine day!