Location: Loch Spelve
Position: 56 24' 61.0 N 005 44.178 W
Distance travelled: 46 nm

We started with an early sail this morning. As we left our sheltered bay of Loch Spelve where we spent the night, Laura gave us an introduction to the bird species commonly found in this area and how to identify them. The presence of these birds can be an important indication of the presence of cetaceans in the seas.

At 9am, we started our 2nd day of field work sightings of cetaceans. Today, we added the recording of sightings of birds, boats, and acoustic data. By today, we have gotten a pretty good hang of the rotational 1-hr duties of sighting, sighting relay, bird identification and data recording.

The sightings were not as abundant as yesterday’s (but we were spoilt with many good sightings yesterday…) – it was a little disappointing but at least we spotted some harbour porpoises, seals and many birds. There were gannets, large gulls, kittywakes, guillemots, shearwaters, great skuas and fulmars. At one point, we spotted more than 30 guillemots sitting together on the sea – a very interesting sight indeed, and we were eagerly hoping for sightings of a whale where the birds were. But alas no sighting of whales. Well, maybe tomorrow!

The Scotland climate is a generous variety of winds, rain, sunshine, grey clouds, bright white clouds, blue sky, grey sky, overcast sky, passing showers. Thank goodness that against the Scottish cold – yes, even though it is ‘summer’! – the crew constantly warm up everyone’s spirit and body with endless rounds of hot tea, hot soups and hot snacks!

Having zig-zagged through the waters of Loch Linnhe today, we finally returned to our sheltered bay at about 5pm after the waters became too rough for further sighting. With pesto pasta, garlic bread, fresh mussels from the farm here, carrot cake and white wine, we called it another good night. May we all have sweet dreams of dolphins, minke whales and basking sharks… :) snore…