Day 302 - October 29th

Before we went to Norfolk I had read of daily seal-watching boat trips to Blakeney Point which operated just up the road from Wells-Next-The-Sea. So with a fine day forecast we booked seats on one of the boats for today. After picking up our tickets from Blakeney Quay we drove to Morston Quay. We were somewhat bemused as to how we were actually going to go on a boat trip when we got to the quay to be met with this sight - no water!



The tide was well and truly out but gradually over the half an hour we waited the tide came in far enough for the boats to leave the quay.

We travelled up the narrow channel past Brent Geese that had recently arrived from the Arctic Circle.



Past the Old Lifeboat House which is now an information centre.



Past lots of boats waiting for the tide to rise further before setting sail.





Past other boats full of tourists eagerly hoping to see seals. Believe it or not these boats carry 40+ people!



And finally we spotted seals. Not as many as we had hoped to see but seals none-the-less including the very first grey seal pup of the year.





Some times there are several hundred seals basking on the point but at the time we were there all bar a few were out at sea feeding. It was good to see them in their natural habitat though.


After our boat trip we returned to Wells. The owner of the cottage had kindly left some crab fishing lines, nets and buckets at the cottage so we decided to try our luck on the quay along with the dozens of other holiday makers.






The line had a net and weight attached to it and it didn't take many minutes before we were hauling in 10 or more crabs at a time. It did feel a bit of a cheats way to catch crabs!











All the time the seagulls were eagerly waiting to gobble up any stray bits of bait.