Position: Och ‘aye, we be anchored for the night in Balephetrish Bay on the island of Tiree, west of Mull, south of Coll and sitting in the Sea of the Hebrides.
Weather: The clouds have set in now, but it’s been fine as a fine thing all day, sunny and bright at times, and hazy at others.
Distance travelled: 46.9 miles (of the nautical nature, you understand)

Wowee wowee, what a day it has been and what a trip, too. To say that I don’t want to go home is an understatement….hmmm, there’s a Sarah-sized space in my cabin locker…maybe I could stow away…

Ah, sorry about that! Forgot I was online and broadcasting to the world and all that jazz-just reminiscing on what a fantastic trip this has been. Sailing the high seas is the way forward methinks, spattered with great company, amazing wildlife and Scottishly wonderful weather, one has it made.

Anyway, despite my deepest and most sincere intentions that this (like all the others) should have been ‘Day of the Whale’ it very quickly turned into ‘Day of the Shark’. No bad thing either, for the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is a handsome beast if ever there was one. Grace, majesty and gigantism coming together in one huge fishy entity, with one hellufa’ mouth. Absolutely awesome. Before we had even pulled off the anchorage we spotted two black fins circling in the bay, noses poking out of the water as they cruised on their early morning plankton foray. A few hundred metres later, in the mirror calm waters we were treated to the spectacular brightness of another’s gaping mouth as it swam alongside, and underneath, the bow of the boat. To see the massive gill slits on the side of its ballooning jowels and look straight into the cavernous mouth was breathtaking; the colour of the mouth a complete contrast to the shiny darkness of its fins above the water. After lots of ‘ooing’ and ‘ahhing’ as we watched these gentle giants, cameras a-snapping wildly for ID shots and albums we headed south east along the coast of Tiree.

A couple of porpoises…a few seals…another couple of our sharkee friends…. And a few more, and more still. By the time we headed out from the Tiree coast we had clocked up a mighty 20 animals, from a wee bairn of not much more than 2 metres to a gargantuan 7 metre beauty. We stopped and observed many of them before heading south to the offshore lighthouse at Skerryvore, some 10 miles from land.

With calm seas and near perfect visibility we hoped for some whaley action, but the cetacean side of things were not so strong, unfortunately. Still fuelled on the wonders of the sharks we’d just left, I for one was excited as we neared the lighthouse as it loomed from the mists. From the crow’s nest I could see some 3 black fins, which soon increased to nine… Nine basking sharks feeding along the tide lines, all within a few hundred metres of each other-it was a sight to behold, especially as they meandered round some unsuspecting gulls, completely unphased by the giants below them. My birds’ eye view from above was definitely the place to be, affording a sense of scale as I peered down on the other crew members with the massive sharks only metres away.

Humbled, awe-struck, amazed and intrigued. That’s how I felt around these somewhat prehistoric creatures, as well as extremely privileged to observe them at such close quarters. Britain’s second largest fish, I believe-bring on the blue shark, I say!

So that was this morning’s entertainment, 39 sharks in all. Not bad, eh?! The afternoon was wiled away under mostly blue skies and sunshine, interrupted by wheeling sea gulls, kittiwakes, guillemots, gannets and those pirates of the sea, the great skuas. Lovely as these feathery folk are, I would have loved to spot a whale or trade in a bird for a dolphin instead, especially as the conditions were so great. Juliet did spot a dolphin of some sort but, try as we might, we couldn’t find it again, and it obviously wasn’t interested in playing.

Oh wellies, can’t really complain when we have 40 baskers to our name in a day…. Perfect really, especially when rounded off with some delicious munchies for dinner.

So it’s over and out from the Silurian on our penultimate night on ship.

Log by Sarah