Most weeks April through October she is either monitoring
the waters of the west coast of Scotland for whales, dolphins, and
porpoises, or serving as a floating classroom for one of the many Argyll
island primary and secondary schools.
Read the
log below to find out what Silurian and her crew have been up to each
week and all about the whales, dolphins and porpoises they spot!
To find out about the latest marine life sightings spotted elsewhere,
click here.
Tuesday 3rd June, 2008
Anchorage: Bunessan
Position: 56°19.200 N 006°15.200 W
Distance surveyed: 28nm
The start of a new Earthwatch trip. Lovely to be in Tobermory and in brilliant weather, too. That was yesterday afternoon; today hasn’t been quite so brilliant. We started out with a forecast (thanks to the Clyde coastguard, who sounds like Sean Connery reading an obituary) of moderate winds and a medium-type sea with the breeze backing from SW to SE, but the wind strength increased and it was decided to turn into Bunessan Bay for a peaceful night (we hope).
The crew this time is Dave, skipper, Gen, first mate, and Susie, science officer, with volunteers Jean, Barbara, Christa, Wendy, Ted and Tony. Ted has been here before, three times, and Wendy was here last year. For Jean, it as been a wonderful experience to be on the foredeck for the first time, and Barbara has served time at the helm. Sadly, Christa, Wendy and Jean went down with the dreaded seasickness, but all were pretty fit again by tonight, and enjoyed Susie’s version of spaghetti Bolognese, with a bit of last night’s chilli to give it a kick.
This morning was taken up by waiting for the vegetable delivery and by a long and informative tutorial by Susie on whale and dolphin identification. We finally got away around noon, and enjoyed sparkling sunshine most of the way, and magnificent views of the Treshnish Islands, which has one islet called the Dutchman’s Cap, and at this point Ted has tried to get me to change that to a rude name, which I won’t do because this is a family blog. The sun is now going down over the sea and this humble little harbour is a lovely, peaceful place for the night.
PS We’ve had ten porpoise detections today.
Wednesday 4th June, 2008
Anchorage: Cragaig, Isle of Ulva
Position: 56°28.100 N 006°13.900 W
Distance surveyed: 31nm
So here we are in Cragaig, Isle of Ulva, trying to remember what happened this morning, which seems a really long time ago. We can remember Barbara’s porridge though, which was idiosyncratic but delicious. Today has been bird spotting day. Have we got our Brownie seabird-watching badges? Science Officer says ‘very good but room for improvement (always)’. Today’s top-scorer was the wonderful guillemot of which we saw thousands and thousands and thousands – ish. All easily recognisable by their manic ‘guilly-guilly-guilly’ flapping (well, it works for Barbara anyway). It’s been windy again today, which means it’s been hard to spot anything, but has resulted in some lovely sailing. And spectacular views of Mull, especially Ben More. Skipper Dave also spotted a torpedo-speed basking shark shooting under the boat near Staffa.
We’ve been well-sustained all day by the skipper’s bacon sarnies, the science officer’s soup and Wendy’s brilliant chicken stew, and are now sitting comfortably digesting, and dozing off after a hard day’s spotting, as conversation strays onto the difficulties of selling pigs due to Health and Safety regulations, and what you get if you genetically engineer a cow and sheep and a goat (answer: the milky baaa kid). It’s been a long day…
