Hi Chris
"Ultimate Pelagics have just launched there 2008 programme and have already managed to sell half the ship, they have a very keen audience this year so I would book early to avoid disappointment, However if you fail to join the Ultimate Pelagic trip Company of Whales offer over 20 dates on the ferry with the access to monkey island although make sure you pick a crossing date that is going to be good weather wise otherwise your access to monkey island will be restricted and you'll end up paying a lot more for nothing as you can join the ferry as a foot passenger with the benefit of BDRP (Biscay Dolphin Research company) making annoncements from bridge and they offer an introductory lecture for those who have not travelled through the bay before....equaly as good and at P&Os standard berth price."
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I smell a large rodent! This reads a little too much like a blatant plug and suffers from artistic jazzing! Up until this point I have deliberately not responded for fear of being accused of plugging a commercial venture I'm involved with, but having looked at Em's previous 14 posts, all of which seem to 'big up' Ultimate Pelagics, and offer sweet little else to the birding community, my instincts remain sound! So, to take the spin off the above and counter some of the nonsense written by Em...
Christopher, do feel free to pick up the phone and give the office here at Company of Whales (COW) a call. Our contact details are at
www.companyofwhales.co.uk We'll will happily discuss our trips in detail with you and also advise on the best time to potentially join us.
In 2008, as well as our usual choice of around 20 departure dates, we are also offering themed research and identification trips in conjunction with the most respected cetacean research group in the Bay of Biscay region - Organisation Cetacea (ORCA). Details of their trips with COW can be found at
http://www.orcaweb.org.uk The Company of Whales has been working alongside ORCA for over ten years by submitting sightings data to this top-flight energetic charity and in so doing, has raised awareness of the importance of the Bay of Biscay as a world-class whale watching location and region for conservation concern. ORCA manages our data that COW naturalist guides and guests collate on all our trips and then enters them into a database which is available to researchers to answer key conservation questions. As our route is very much a fixed line, fixed speed transect (and a very fruitful one at that), our data sets are thus more useful to the scientific community than an average 'lets get out there once a year and see what we can see' type-trip. ORCA is COW's chosen research partner in Biscay for too many reasons to list here and our ten year collaboration has resulted in the publication of many ground-breaking papers regarding cetacean ecology in Biscay - you can see a few of them by key Biscay experts and researchers like Dylan Walker, Kelly Macleod, Graeme Creswell and Matt Hobbs, online underneath the 'latest research news header' at
http://www.companyofwhales.co.uk/html/news/news_fr.htm
As for choosing a date when the crossing will be good, then my advice would be to contact Em who can obviously predict such things!! If its too windy on Monkey Island, its therefore often too windy on deck 11 - and then everybody is in the same position - down to the side decks. But it is rare that this happens - maybe 1 or 2 days out of 60 and for me personally, in 80+ trips as a guide, I have had to lead a group off Monkey Island only 3 or 4 times over 8 years. The reality of being on Monkey Island is that we are often far more sheltered up there than one may think - the wind will hit any one of the four sides of the bridge superstructure and rise right up over us. There have been lots of times out there when deck 11 has been impossible to watch from but up on Monkey Island, we more than often continually find ourselves in a big cell of calm air!
Both companies obviously offer very similar trips for sea birders and cetacean enthusiasts, but there are major differences. My advice would be to look at the trading histories of the businesses, the quality of guides and support / office staff it employs, the conservation-angle each business takes, the charities it works with and financially supports, the choice of departures, the group size, the quality of pre-departure information, how many trips each business has run in total (and indeed how many trips they've cancelled, date-changed or merged together).
As there is a choice, you are doing the right thing in asking questions of both companies and doing your 'homework'. I do exactly the same when travelling the parts of the World I don't have the privilege to work or guide in. There are plenty of honest threads on Bird forum (eg.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=92322&highlight=Biscay ) from folks who have travelled with the respective companies but like I suggest, feel free to contact us birders and naturalists who work full-time for COW for honest 'as it is' advice - not hearsay!
All the very best from windy, rainy and dark Shetland,
Hugh Harrop
PS - if Em would like to PM me to give me her full name, I'll PM you to let you know whether she has indeed ever been on one of our trips and is therefore in a position to offer advice on our trips! Naturally I would not send you her name in accordance with DPA rules and regs.
PPS - Tongue in cheek, one thing I'll pretty much guarantee is that we won't be able to show you the White-sided Dolphins that Ultimate Pelagics claim to be part of the "abundant" marine life in the English Channel - see attached screen grab from their site or refer to
http://www.ultimatepelagics.com/page7.html The species is in fact extremely rare in the Channel and in Biscay. But, naturally, they get claimed...not by us I might add!
