Anchorage: Pabay Mor
Position: 58° 13’.400N 006° 56’.400W
Distance Travelled: 50 NM

We left the Kyles of Scarp after a hearty breakfast and headed more or less due west for about 20 miles aiming for the celebrated Flannan Isles notorious for the mysterious disappearance in 1900 of 3 lighthouse keepers who vanished without a trace leaving the meal on the table. Our passage to the Flannan Isles was graced with a visit of 3 white- beaked dolphins, a species we hadn’t yet encountered that resemble a panda bear with their black and white markings. Not long after we encountered another group of 4 white-beaked dolphins. As we got closer to the Flannan’s the sightings of both gannets and puffins increased and when we finally arrived we made a semi-circumnavigation of the archipelago visiting the western islets first where we came across a gigantic gannet colony. What looked like a rock with white lumps on it turned out to be a rock with thousands of gannets on it. We then came back to the main island with the lighthouse and managed to land on the original landing, although it did require a bit of a scramble up a perilous staircase above a raging sea. Given the remote location we were rather surprised to be greeted by two Geordie construction workers who kindly guided us up the steep slopes to the lighthouse and pointed out the puffin nests. The summit of the island was covered in a beautiful flower festooned meadow and puffin burrows. It was also possible if you squinted really hard to make out the faint outline of St. Kilda. Back on the boat, after our lovely visit to the Flannan Isles we made our way to the north coast of Lewis rounding gallon head we ran through another fecund spot with gannets diving and basking sharks basking and finished the day with a bit of island hopping to produce a fitting end to a magical day.