Mackerel!

Finally!  Gentle wind from the East, a high and rising tide, and calm seas.  We got the dinghy out straight after breakfast and headed out to try fishing the bay.  What a success that proved to be!
 
CyclopsJnr quickly got 5 modest sized mackerel  at once - a 100% strike rate for his 5 hooks.  He was thrilled.  We put them all in the bucket for our lunch.  Then we heard something close behind us - where there should be empty sea..  We turned round and saw a pod of at least 5 porpoises about 5m away and the sound we heard was their breathing.  We have seen them in the distance in the bay before, but never this close!  We could see their bodies underwater as they did what seemed to be circles round the boat for about 10 minutes, presumably hunting mackerel as we kept catching more.  In all my years coming here I've never had an encounter like that with porpoises.  Just incredible.
 
In the end we caught 26 mackerel between us  - although CyclopsJnr definitely got the most.  Cyclops got the biggest, which we added to the bucket, but the rest went straight back in.  CyclopsJnr also caught a decent sized coalfish (saithe) which we put back.  A most successful venture.
 
CyclopsJnr enjoyed watching the process of gutting the fish back at the beach, but wasn't keen to get involved.  Then we went up to the house and grilled some for our lunch.  About an hour from sea to plate.  Wonderful.
 
After lunch we came back down to the beach to play.  CyclopsJnr had a go rowing the boat on his own (with Cyclops holding a long rope for safety) which went pretty well.  He's come on a lot since last year.  Then we build sand castles, forts, wall, moats and piles. 
 
As this is our last day we took some stuff back to the car late afternoon, then had another game of junior monopoly while dinner cooked.  We had toasted marshmallows, but not very many as CyclopsJnr was falling asleep at the table!