Date: Thursday 12^th July, 2007

Anchorage: Arisaig

Position: 56° 54’.100N 005° 51’.900W

Distance Travelled: 30 NM

On Wednesday evening, our new volunteers joined us for another cetacean survey. Unfortunately, two of our six had had to pull out due to broken bones, so we were down to four – Emma, Fiona, Alison and Rachel.

After some training, we set out north, and in no time at all were besieged by the local porpoise population, and had some lovely sightings and acoustic detections. North of Ardnamurchan, we encountered a huge hurry of hundreds of manx shearwaters plunging into the water with inelegant dive-bomb splashing. No cetaceans around, but a sure sign of productive waters and plenty of food to eat.

The weather was good to us, and towards the end of the afternoon, we headed in towards Arisaig, and lovely dinner (The Chef’s Special Chocolate Vegetables), after which the ladies tried their hands at going up the crow’s nest. A bit of unseemly girly squealing ensued, but everyone got up (and down).

Susie, Science Officer