Boat Trips and Wildlife Cruises in Pembrokeshire

The islands are Pembrokeshire's headline wildlife, and the only way to see them properly is from a boat. There are two distinct kinds of trip: a landing, where you are dropped on an island and collected hours later, and a cruise, where you stay aboard and go looking for what is in the water.

Skomer is the big one. It holds one of the largest Manx shearwater colonies in the world — several hundred thousand pairs, which come and go only in darkness — and a very approachable puffin population that nests in burrows right beside the footpaths. Boats leave from Martin's Haven at the tip of the Marloes peninsula, and this is the important part: landing places are capped to protect the island, they are booked in advance, and in the puffin season they sell out. Do not plan to turn up on the morning. Puffins are ashore from April to late July and gone abruptly after that.

Ramsey sits off St Davids, and boats for it leave from the tiny lifeboat station at St Justinian's. The crossing goes past The Bitches, a rock ridge in Ramsey Sound that turns the tide into a race with standing waves and overfalls — genuinely dangerous water, and part of the reason the trip is memorable. Ramsey has cliffs, choughs, and one of the biggest grey seal pupping colonies in southern Britain in autumn.

From Tenby, boats run the short hop to Caldey Island, which has a working Cistercian monastery, a beach, and a chapel — a gentler day out than Skomer and much easier with small children or limited mobility.

Cruises rather than landings run from Martin's Haven, St Justinian's, Tenby, Saundersfoot, Fishguard and Solva. The fast rigid-inflatable trips get you round Grassholm — a gannet colony visible as a white cap on the horizon — and into the tide races. Slower boats are better for photography and much better if anyone in the party is prone to seasickness. Common dolphins, harbour porpoises and grey seals are all realistic; sunfish and the occasional minke turn up in late summer.

Season runs Easter to October. April to July for seabirds, August and September for calmer sea and the start of the seal pupping, October for the tail end. Trips are cancelled for swell and wind more often than visitors expect — often a day or two at a time — so book early in your holiday rather than on the last afternoon.

What catches people out: the permit system on Skomer, which regularly leaves people standing at Martin's Haven with nothing booked. Second, how cold it is on the water; people board in T-shirts in July and spend an hour shivering. Third, a landing is a full day on an island with no facilities beyond a toilet — bring food and water, and expect three or four miles of walking.

Take binoculars. The difference they make on a wildlife trip is enormous.