Date: Thursday 24th September
Anchorage: Isle Ornsay, Skye
Position: 57°09’.105N, 05°47’.564W
Distance: 39.0NM

We left anchorage later in the morning. Nienke decided to start with a continued lesson computer data input procedure first while still anchored and not moving around too much. Yesterday the weather was bad and therefore it was not managed to explain the logging procedure to everybody yet. Better nice in harbour, than whilst rolling around.... Throughout the day, we had three porpoise sightings and 1 seal sighting, more than could be expected based on the sea state. Nevertheless, we broke the season’s record for the number of acoustic detections: wow, 33 harbour porpoises groups (last record was 29)! Also a lot of fearless birds were staying in the wind around the boat (mainly young herring gulls). On the way we got to notice the tools of the local fisherman; the creel’s. Fortunately no whale was trapped in any of them. Also our first rubbish was monitored and logged. Hats off to our asdic operator who picked up the Coastguard’s vessel’s propeller sound. Everyone is getting used to the different regular sounds picked up by the hydrophone, but picking up the more unusual sounds is still quite challenging and therefore noteworthy. Thanks to the cook of the evening meal. Fine chicken breast with roast vegetables and optional mustard. After dinner was a presentation about the main birds present in the area, while seated with a nice warm drink. Hopefully we are ready to recognise those tomorrow....