• 8th March 2000, Sydney, Pelagic Trip Report, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Sydney Pelagic report 8th March 2000

    After reading a report on the Southport Boat trip I am afraid the Sydney one pales into insignificance. Firstly, it rained most of the day, there were very few birds, and as we had no one from SOSSA on board we had to work them out manually. We were hopeless, but fortunately there were so few that we did work them all out in the end. We went 25 miles off shore. There were 8 passengers.

    Little Penguin 3
    Providence Petrel 2
    Great-winged Petrel 4
    Wedge-tailed Shearwater c50
    Flesh-footed Shearwater c60
    Wilson's Storm-Petrel 2
    Australian Gannet 4
    Silver Gull
    Great Crested-Tern 6
    Pomarine Jaeger 8
    Parasitic Jaeger 10
    Rufous Fantail 1

    12 SPECIES
    The highlight for me was at 12 miles a Rufous Fantail tried to land on the
    boat. It flew right around my side of the boat just a metre away.

    Mammals
    Melon-headed Whales 20-30
    Common Dolphin 2
    Bottle-nosed Dolphin 6

    I don't wish to convey the impression it was a dull trip. Our skipper, Hal was terrific in making it a memorable day. He chummed and chummed until the only birds around were in the water beside us. His crew nudged the boat into a circle of Melon-headed Whales and we had the best views. They also positioned the boat to keep pace with the dolphins and we leaned over the front looking straight down the blowholes. The finale was the closeness we got to a 5 or 6 foot Marlin basking or feeding on the surface and the closeness we got to a small sunfish.


    Trevor Quested