Location: Kinuachdrachd Harbour, Jura
Position: 56 deg 07’.34N 005 deg 41’.44W
Distance surveyed: 57nm

A stiff north-north-westerly has blown all day, setting up a rough sea and swell. No cetacean sightings, but we managed to hone our birdwatching skills, following a briefing from Laura as we left Loch Spelve. We can now tell our gulls from our guillemots. Just.
We saw quite a lot of kittiwakes as we left Mull, and during the day saw shearwaters, razorbills, gannets, terns and even, towards the end of the day, a couple of black guillemots. The most intense bird activity was in the Corrievreckan whirlpool, where they congregated in massive numbers around one of the most disturbed patches of water in Britain, where fish are stirred up by the turbulence of the tides.
Back to the sailing: we covered about 57 miles today, crossing Loch Buie and turning towards the Garvellachs. It got very lumpy, and I’m sorry to say that this blogger got horribly sick and had to retire from the fray until revived about an hour later by some lovely leek and potato soup.
We crossed the Sound of Luing and crossed the side of the Corrievrecken before sailing down the coast of Jura and anchoring for the night at Kinuachdrachd, a harbour on the north-east side.
Some of us went for a walk ashore. This is the wildest island of the Inner Hebrides, covered with heath and woodland. We saw lesser spotted orchids, foxglove, tormentil, and mouse ear, plus one definite golden eagle, one possible, and three red deer.
Although there were no cetacean observations, the hydrophone has been working well and we have detected around 33 porpoise events with the acoustic equipment.
Back on board tonight there were sausages for supper, and a seal observation game is going on, which sounds fun….