Silurian’s first obligation of the season was as host and platform to a new course for HWDT – An introductory Marine Mammal Course. This incorporates evenings lectures, a day sail leaning how to use the hydrophones and collect data, species identification, what applications all the hours of data logging get used for, as well as Plankton sampling and its place in the food chain.

Once all hands had boarded- on a wet Saturday morning, safety and science lectures had taken place, we headed out into a misty Sound of Mull. It wasn’t long before one of the hydrophones detected porpoise followed by our first sighting. Because of strong winds our route would take us up the sheltered waters of Loch Sunart – where because of a calmer sea state we would be able to sight more seals and porpoise. Participants learnt from Clare how to understand the acoustics software and decipher porpoise activity from clicks and whistles and red dots on the PC graphs. Others mean while where stations at various places around the vessel with a nominated area of sea to observe with binoculars for any cetacean or seal activity.

Penny’s Highland broth and Eilidh brownies were much enjoyed in the damp drizzle. As usual on the west coast, when we can have all four seasons in one day, the sun appeared and gave fantastic warm light to the snow draped hills and vivid, late winter colours from the Sunart oak woodlands. We were able to sail back from far up the loch around the islets, where anyone that wanted could take the helm for a stint. Returning to Tobermory for an evening meal and another talk by Clare on how statistical models of species numbers and habitats are built using the data collated from these monitoring trips.


Unfortunately the weather deteriorated for the Sunday morning but un-deterred Silurian’s saloon was turned into a lab with microscopes lamps and Petri dishes. Two groups joined me in the RIB to collect water samples with the plankton nets, returning to Silurian to study them in detail.

After a lunch aboard and more interesting conversations. Course participants returned to the land for an afternoon costal walk out at Caliach point. Silurian was readied for a week of education around the Oban and Lismore schools. More books, Whale bones, baleen and laptops were loaded, water tanks filled and all deck gear made fast before we headed out of Tobermory bay to the sound of Mull with a crew of nine hands aboard….


Author & Skipper
Duncan Cameron.