Friday 28th July
Position: 58’ 11.650’N 006’ 56.228’W
Anchored at Floday, Loch Roag
We set off after breakfast from Taransay, the remote Hebridean Island where the first ‘fly on the wall’ TV documentary Castaway 2000 was filmed. Our intentions for the day were to head north to survey the rugged and barren west coast of Lewis, an area where very little work on cetaceans has been carried out. The remoteness of this coast and the hostile seas which thrash straight in from the Atlantic make this a very difficult area to survey. The prospect of discovering an unknown resident group of bottlenose dolphins along these coasts filled everyone with anticipation.
So, despite the bleak weather conditions the day started with considerable excitement in the air, a word very popular among some volunteers! However, this changed very rapidly some hours later when we encountered rough seas 10 miles off the coast off Lewis causing some green faces to appear among the volunteers.
No bottlenose dolphins to be found yet but our trip out here was made worth while as a group of white beaked dolphins were spotted by Peter, our Science Officer and 2 Minke whales, a porpoise and 3 seals were also sighted. After a hard day battling with the swell and green-faced volunteers, we slowly made our way back in to the more sheltered waters of Loch Roag, a welcome refuge in this huge expanse of water they call the Atlantic. Dave the skipper guided us through all the fish and mussel farms in amongst the pretty islands and islets of Loch Roag. Whilst we were looking for a suitable place to drop the anchor we were watched closely by locals as they peered out of their kitchen windows giving us a sense that we were medieval sea-farers from distant shores.
We were later joined for dinner by Simon and Ross who had been braving the big waves in thier small rubber boat all day and had earned a healthy portion of spag bol.
John Kirkwood, HWDT Volunteer and Laura Mandleberg, HWDT Sightings Officer