Welcome to the 2008 research and education season onboard Silurian!

Our season started back at the end of March with a very successful collaboration with the Marine Mammal Science MRes at the Sea Mammal Research Unit. 44 knot winds and a horizontal blizzard in the Sound of Mull were no match for the fearless students, and the trip went very well. Since then, we've run two marine mammal courses - all before the end of April.

Now we're in the middle of our first full monitoring trip of the season. Volunteers joined us in Tobermory on Tuesday night (29th April), and Wednesday saw us transecting up to to Canna in fair weather. Thursday took us across the Sea of the Hebrides, through the Sound of Barra and back to spend the night in Eriskay, where we had a fantastic walk from the harbour to the village, enjoying a grand pint in the The Politician, a sunset walk back along the blonde beaches and a slightly late dinner (11pm) back on the boat. Today we went back and forwards through Barra Sound again. We had been hoping to spot the bottlenose dolphins that are resident in the Sound, but no sign of them, either today or yesterday. We carried on over to Skye, where we are currently anchored in Loch Harport. All in lovely sunshine.

We've had plenty of porpoise detections on the hydrophone, but sightings have been few. There's a major military exercise going on round the Hebrides at the moment, and military boats have been outnumbering cetaceans somewhat. But the weather's great, and life onboard really good - even as I write, Andy is in the galley baking bread whilst we are all in awe as the sun sets in firey glory over Macleod's Tables.

Susie, Science Officer

# posted by HWDT @ 1:06 PM