Isle of Rhum to Loch Harport, Isle of Skye

Awakening to a beautiful sunrise over Knoidart in mirror like sea conditions, after a quick breakfast and clean through of the boat, we said farewell to the island of Rum and were swiftly back on effort. It was another one of those Hebridean days, where the sea can never quite make up its mind about what it’s going to throw at us. Through the day we had periods of flat calm and 13 mile visibility through to 1 mile and 2.5m swell.

We headed off north round the coast of Rum, turning back south and west round Canna and Oigh Sgeir Lighthouse, then north towards Skye in a bid to use the favourable conditions to conduct transects in areas that have had limited survey coverage previously. After a couple of porpoise detections and sightings there was a long period of no activity until a cry of “Sighting! Basking shark!” was heard from Libbi at the mast. This was followed by further sightings. During the 20 minute or so “With whales” (OK sharks really) period a total of around 15 animals were recorded.

As we progressed north again, a number of gannets were spotted diving and feeding on the left of the boat, almost immediately “Sighting! Common dolphin!” was called from the mast and deck simultaneously as the dolphins and gannets were seemingly feeding on the same shoal of fish. Once again we were ‘with whales’ and a number of the dolphins started porpoising towards the boat to commence a 10 minute association with Silurian involving bow riding and porpoising alongside the boat. Three calves were spotting among the bow riding animals with the total pod size estimated at 18. As the dolphins headed off we turned back on transect and were soon back on effort.

As we approached out anchorage in Loch Harport there were further harbor porpoise sightings and Lynsey scaled the crows nest to enjoy the stunning view of the Cuillins.

After our evening meal Anya conducted a 5 hour (wink wink!) lecture on the work of HWDT, reviewing the survey data collected between 2001 and 2012 and showing how this is used to model the distribution of the main species across the West of Scotland and how this information is used to further knowledge and inform future research into these amazing animals.

The evening was rounded off with a quick trip onshore to enjoy a swift refreshment at the Old Inn in Carbost.