2008 Update - Erika Hearn, Head Guide
So, the 2008 Season is fast approaching… With Easter SO early this year, the Sea Life Survey (SLS) crew are already twitching for chocolate, and this means we’ll be out on the water as soon as March - Woohoo!
Winter for the team here on Mull has been a plethora of delights, with Skipper Jimbo and Captain Lewis setting High Standards by WINNING Best Newcomer trophies at the 2007 Mull Rally in October!! Vroommm vroooom! We were all VERY proud and feasting on Tunnocks caramel wafers in true celebratory fashion.
Jimbo then spent some reflective time in China; Popz ascended to the dizzying heights of Everest Base Camp; and I chose NOT to travel to Pakistan in search of illusive Humpback whales…. Lewis meanwhile had been joined on Mull by Tim; our newest and keenest SLS recruit. A Not-so-much-of-the-Old friend of Popz’, Tim is a wee bit handy with whatever tool you happen to pass him across the deck. Needless to say, Lew and Tim have been up to their eyeballs in overalls and undercoat during these dark winter months.
SLS are very glad to welcome Tim, and his good lady Debbie, aboard and look forward to sharing increasingly more sunny and inspiring moments on our Hebridean seas. In fact, we had an early romantic gift, as 5 - 6 Bottlenose dolphins visited us in Tobermory Bay for OVER TWO HOURS the day before St. Valentine’s! Aw. There we were, watching paint dry alongside the pontoon, minding our own February business, when, as if the cetaceans had got fed up waiting for us to get out to sea and find them, they came to us! In the SUNSHINE and Everything!! ☺
Speaking of the return of wonderful creatures, we have no less than SIX of our previous SLS guides coming back to join us this season! I’m touched, Thanks guys x So those of you who are old-timers aboard our boats will recognise more than a few friendly faces and Ghosts of Season’s Past….
Top Guide Lady Clare G who joined us at the Very Beginning of 2007 Season (yup, we had two Clare’s...), fell SO In Love with Mull(!) that she stayed ALL WINTER! Her smiley face has been adorning the kitchens of the island’s oldest pub, creating culinary delights to comfort cold locals. Contact us any time soon to organise a cetacean-hopeful excursion (our office is open ALL year round!) and it will be Clare G’s dulcet tones greeting you on the end of the line. She’s temporarily asserting herself in the SLS office prior to messing about on the water again.
Our OTHER Top Guide Lady from 2007 Season, Abby, will soon be joining us to keep the office ship-shape. Now, it’s not a Small World, it’s just a Big Bar - both Abby and Clare G studied the same Marine Biology/Zoology degree course at Bangor University as Head Guide myself did! (Several years apart, mind.) Must be something to do with watching porpoises in soft Celtic rain, surrounded by big hills….
We also welcome back Our Rach for 2008. She’s been All Around The World on BIG adventures - she’s even got ENGAGED since her 2005 Season with us as Phenomenal Bird-spotting Guide!! And wee Sam, who joined us for a few project-related weeks as an undergraduate last season, will be gracing our bows with ALL her newly-released enthusiasm for marine things this summer - Hurrah!
Sealife Surveys will also be joined by some of our favourite Leading Men for the 2008 Season…. Step forward Tom: my trusty “Lieutenant” last season, he will hopefully be celebrating his third year with SLS as he graduates with his degree in History! (See, you don’t have to know who ate all the plankton before you can come to work for Sealife Surveys. I taught him everything he knows....)
Dunk, our resident Harry Potter look-a-like, will be returning to his homeland to join us for a second season. A refreshingly salt-sprayed break from studying Law…. And he’s a few more years to go just yet, so all the better for SLS, eh Dunk!?
Of course Razor-Eyes Andy Tait, Second Ever member of the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (who WAS The First, anyway?!) will be joining us throughout the season again this year. He can spot a Porpoise off Canna before we’ve even left the Sound of Mull. And our very own Nic will be back out on the water. Indeed he has been already. On the 13th of February, armed with his trusty RIB and long lens, adding to the Photo-ID catalogue we share with HWDT and improving our understanding of the distribution of these nomadic beasts. (And that’s just our Wildlife Guides….).
No, I wasn’t referring solely to SLS’s loveable rouge, “Lippy”. Last but not least, Iain has dutifully been maintaining his way through the Mull winter, and will no doubt be spotted on deck this season; coffee in one hand, white spirit in the other.
So that’s all our important people sorted for the high seas. What else is new? Well, Sula Mhor and Sula Beag will of course be looking their most gleaming and eager to carry passengers from Monday 17th March (- why not come and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a pint of Scottish black stuff on Mull?!...).
But The Best News For 2008 - ALL Sealife Surveys trips are now CO-ORDINATED with the Ferry! So you don’t even have to stay over-night to come with us on a Whalewatch Explorer!!... AND we’re getting a FAB new Visitor Centre, specially built at the top of Ledaig car park, over-looking the posh new pontoons. Fancy stuff, huh? The biggest window-hole at present (no, the building work’s not QUITE finished just yet…) is actually where our new and impressively large aquarium will be. So we will be able to watch our creel-pot creatures feed on our plankton trawl samples from OUTSIDE the office this year!
All we need now are some willing visitors to share all this excitement with!!... We look forward to welcoming you aboard soon ☺
Erika Hearn, SLS Head Guide.
Winter for the team here on Mull has been a plethora of delights, with Skipper Jimbo and Captain Lewis setting High Standards by WINNING Best Newcomer trophies at the 2007 Mull Rally in October!! Vroommm vroooom! We were all VERY proud and feasting on Tunnocks caramel wafers in true celebratory fashion.
Jimbo then spent some reflective time in China; Popz ascended to the dizzying heights of Everest Base Camp; and I chose NOT to travel to Pakistan in search of illusive Humpback whales…. Lewis meanwhile had been joined on Mull by Tim; our newest and keenest SLS recruit. A Not-so-much-of-the-Old friend of Popz’, Tim is a wee bit handy with whatever tool you happen to pass him across the deck. Needless to say, Lew and Tim have been up to their eyeballs in overalls and undercoat during these dark winter months.
SLS are very glad to welcome Tim, and his good lady Debbie, aboard and look forward to sharing increasingly more sunny and inspiring moments on our Hebridean seas. In fact, we had an early romantic gift, as 5 - 6 Bottlenose dolphins visited us in Tobermory Bay for OVER TWO HOURS the day before St. Valentine’s! Aw. There we were, watching paint dry alongside the pontoon, minding our own February business, when, as if the cetaceans had got fed up waiting for us to get out to sea and find them, they came to us! In the SUNSHINE and Everything!! ☺
Speaking of the return of wonderful creatures, we have no less than SIX of our previous SLS guides coming back to join us this season! I’m touched, Thanks guys x So those of you who are old-timers aboard our boats will recognise more than a few friendly faces and Ghosts of Season’s Past….
Top Guide Lady Clare G who joined us at the Very Beginning of 2007 Season (yup, we had two Clare’s...), fell SO In Love with Mull(!) that she stayed ALL WINTER! Her smiley face has been adorning the kitchens of the island’s oldest pub, creating culinary delights to comfort cold locals. Contact us any time soon to organise a cetacean-hopeful excursion (our office is open ALL year round!) and it will be Clare G’s dulcet tones greeting you on the end of the line. She’s temporarily asserting herself in the SLS office prior to messing about on the water again.
Our OTHER Top Guide Lady from 2007 Season, Abby, will soon be joining us to keep the office ship-shape. Now, it’s not a Small World, it’s just a Big Bar - both Abby and Clare G studied the same Marine Biology/Zoology degree course at Bangor University as Head Guide myself did! (Several years apart, mind.) Must be something to do with watching porpoises in soft Celtic rain, surrounded by big hills….
We also welcome back Our Rach for 2008. She’s been All Around The World on BIG adventures - she’s even got ENGAGED since her 2005 Season with us as Phenomenal Bird-spotting Guide!! And wee Sam, who joined us for a few project-related weeks as an undergraduate last season, will be gracing our bows with ALL her newly-released enthusiasm for marine things this summer - Hurrah!
Sealife Surveys will also be joined by some of our favourite Leading Men for the 2008 Season…. Step forward Tom: my trusty “Lieutenant” last season, he will hopefully be celebrating his third year with SLS as he graduates with his degree in History! (See, you don’t have to know who ate all the plankton before you can come to work for Sealife Surveys. I taught him everything he knows....)
Dunk, our resident Harry Potter look-a-like, will be returning to his homeland to join us for a second season. A refreshingly salt-sprayed break from studying Law…. And he’s a few more years to go just yet, so all the better for SLS, eh Dunk!?
Of course Razor-Eyes Andy Tait, Second Ever member of the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (who WAS The First, anyway?!) will be joining us throughout the season again this year. He can spot a Porpoise off Canna before we’ve even left the Sound of Mull. And our very own Nic will be back out on the water. Indeed he has been already. On the 13th of February, armed with his trusty RIB and long lens, adding to the Photo-ID catalogue we share with HWDT and improving our understanding of the distribution of these nomadic beasts. (And that’s just our Wildlife Guides….).
No, I wasn’t referring solely to SLS’s loveable rouge, “Lippy”. Last but not least, Iain has dutifully been maintaining his way through the Mull winter, and will no doubt be spotted on deck this season; coffee in one hand, white spirit in the other.
So that’s all our important people sorted for the high seas. What else is new? Well, Sula Mhor and Sula Beag will of course be looking their most gleaming and eager to carry passengers from Monday 17th March (- why not come and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a pint of Scottish black stuff on Mull?!...).
But The Best News For 2008 - ALL Sealife Surveys trips are now CO-ORDINATED with the Ferry! So you don’t even have to stay over-night to come with us on a Whalewatch Explorer!!... AND we’re getting a FAB new Visitor Centre, specially built at the top of Ledaig car park, over-looking the posh new pontoons. Fancy stuff, huh? The biggest window-hole at present (no, the building work’s not QUITE finished just yet…) is actually where our new and impressively large aquarium will be. So we will be able to watch our creel-pot creatures feed on our plankton trawl samples from OUTSIDE the office this year!
All we need now are some willing visitors to share all this excitement with!!... We look forward to welcoming you aboard soon ☺
Erika Hearn, SLS Head Guide.
posted by Sea Life Surveys at
8:51 pm
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