Whale Watching and Spain

I haven't talked about this on here before, but I'm a huge fan of whales and whale watching. I've been in love with these amazing creatures ever since I was very young. My absolute favourite are blue whales. I also like dolphins and other large marine creatures. I've been whale watching a number of times and it really is a fantastic experience. Last week I went on a 3 day "Mini Cruise" (more like long ferry trip) from Portsmouth to Bilbao across the Bay of Biscay which is one of the best places to see whales in the world. It's normally famous for large numbers of gray whales but mysteriously this year sighting have been way below average. We still saw plenty of wildlife though including huge numbers of common dolphins on the 2nd day and more dolphins and rare beaked whales on the 3rd. My attempts to photograph the dolphins were largely unsuccessful although the photo below just about shows a couple of dolphins just poking up through the waves.

We also had a 4 hour excursion in Spain to the scenic fishing town of Castro-Urdiales.

And for your information here is a list of all the cetacean species that I've had the pleasure to see.

Hannah's Cetacean Checklist

Definite

Humpback Whale

Bottlenose Dolphin

Striped Dolphin

Short-beaked Common Dolphin

Pacific White-sided Dolphin

Northern Right Whale Dolphin

Risso's Dolphin

Harbour Porpoise

Dall's Porpoise

Cuvier's Beaked Whale (although there’s a chance it was a Northern Bottlenose Whale)

Possible

Minke Whale – Sighting was a long time ago so I’m not sure

Fin Whale – Only saw the blow and I’m not sure that counts

Captivity – Not condoning or condemning the keeping of cetaceans in captivity just listing what I happen to have seen

Commerson's Dolphin

False Killer Whale

Orca

Beluga

Amazon River Dolphin

First post in a long time! Hopefully not the last.

Its been a long time since I last posted anything here. School work caught up with me and the further behind I got with entries, the less inclined I was to write anything. Now that I've graduated though I hope to change that and update a bit more often. In addition to graduating, quite a lot has happened, including the birth of my new little sister Ellen. Right now I'm technically unemployed and looking for a temporary job to tide me over before I go back to Japan next year hopefully around march.