Location: Port Ellen
Position: 55 N 37' 709 006 W 11' 916
Distance travelled: 57 nm

Today was fairly quiet in that few animals were sighted, which was agitating because for most of the day, the weather gave us perfect conditions. We travelled miles over calm waters from Tayvallich on the Argyll Coast over to Port Ellen on the Isle of Islay.
Following us for most of the way, were fulmars, an impressive seabird that glides over the water with excessive ease, also the magnificent shearwaters, who also showed off to us their fantastic display of aerodynamics.
Harbour porpoises yet again didn’t fail to put in an appearance, letting us glimpse at them as they took breaths of air. Mario’s eagerness to see a whale took him up to the crows nest, where he spent 3 hours continually searching the water for the possibility of a sighting, however, even though he had informed us that 17 was his lucky number, none such luck was had! But nobody was complaining as once again, a fantastic day was had for all on board, made even better by Nigel’s persistent ability to make perfect scrambled egg for a mid morning snack or Michelle’s promise of her sweet potato curry for dinner! (Yeh, it all revolves around food on this ship!!!)

Louise Whiteside (Earthwatch volunteer)

Location: Tayvallich
Position: 56 N 01.308 005 W 37.080
Distance travelled: 50nm

It was an adventurous day aboard the Silurian which began with a brief sighting of a juvenile otter on the shore as we set out under a full rainbow along the Sound of Jura. Eagle-eye volunteer Michelle soon spotted a young basking shark. But the best was yet to come. The sea chop eased into a calmness as all eyes looked hopefully around the boat. A gray flash in the distance broke the surface and then suddenly – dolphinopolis! A pod of about fifteen bottlenose dolphins was swimming alongside. Science Officer Laura recognized some of them as being long term residents of the west coast of Scotland. There were 2 year-old calves among them frolicking about, showing off their graceful flukes and superior swimming skills and they dove and swam sideways under the boat.

The dolphins were the first to spot a boat of school-aged children on an outing and immediately headed straight towards them. The Goldeneye took a course parallel to the Silurian and we shared the fun of watching the pod surface in synchronous beauty with an occasional leap to the delight of the kids (on both boats) who cheered them onwards. The crew and volunteers basked in the glow of the dolphins’ effervescence for the rest of the day, enjoying an additional rare sighting of a storm petrel and playing in the phosphorescence at our mooring spot in Tayvallich. We are all looking forward to see where the wind takes us tomorrow.

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…

Location: Loch Spelve
Position: 56 N 24' 61.0 005 W 44'178
Distance Travelled: 30nm

On a mooring buoy in Loch Spelve its time to reflect on a very productive day….We set out from Tobermory at 1400 hours. While waiting for a late delivery of vegetables, a few hesitant, but very brave volunteers climbed up to the crow’s nest, where a spectacular view of the harbour was waiting for them. We were glad to start moving, especially as it was perfect conditions for making sightings, and that we did! As soon as we set off, harbour porpoises were letting us know their presence. As we travelled along the sound of Mull, the farther south we sailed the more porpoises we saw, eventually passing through a group of 8 or 10 who were all very lively, jumping out of the water, playing and feeding. As this is quite an uncommon thing to see, it was really fortunate to come across so many taking part in this behaviour Some of us even had the pleasure to see a small calf swimming alongside its mother. Once we reached the Firth of Lorn, the number of sightings of porpoises dropped but we were occupied with the spectacular views of the Mountains enclosing the Firth, and the variety of birdlife. After zigzagging from Mull to Kerrera, we eventually ended up in Loch Spelve, where we will spend the night. As well as harbour porpoises, we managed to record common and grey seals, both in the Sound of Mull and the Firth of Lorn, some of whom seemed quite inquisitive and came quite close, their curiosity was certainly welcome! The waters stayed calm and the weather stayed stable throughout the day, giving us a fantastic day of sightings. Apart from a bitter wind towards the end of the day (nothing a hearty cup of soup couldn’t cure), it remained warm and, I’ll say this with a pinch of salt! Gave us a sense of good weather to come…..maybe…..hopefully!

We welcome on board our six new volunteers (Earthwatch VI), Mario from Argentina, Stephanie from the USA, June from Singapore, Louise from Scotland, Michelle and Peter from England. Crew on board are Laura (Science Officer), Cormac (PhD student - SMRU), John (skipper) and Nigel (first mate).