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Captain's Log
Ray Mears aboard filming for Wild Britain!
Shark Charter - 28th June
Alex Mustard is aboard with us again all of this week, hunting for basking sharks, last day tomorrow, please see his page to view some of the amazing pictures he has taken so far!! ;-)
From the boat today - a manx shearwater walking on water.
Whalewatch Explorer 28th June 2012
Whalewatch Explorer passengers and crew - 28th June 2012. The rain didn't stop us today, we had incredible views of a large basking shark, around 8m in size, that swam right along side Sula Beag along with 3 other sharks seen. Also 2 sneaky minke whales, lovely views of porpoise including a juvenile, storm petrels, puffins, skuas, fulmars, terns, shearwaters and even the sun came out on our way home :-)
Wildlife Adventure 27th June 2012
Wildlife Adventure passengers - 27th June 2012. A rather wet trip today but flat calm seas and some lovely sightings... an otter feeding hard close to the shoreline, a white tailed eagle catching a fish right next to Sula Beag, porpoise, manx shearwater skating over the water, puffins and common and Atlantic grey seals! :-)
Whalewatch Explorer 26th June 2012
Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 26th June 2012. Great sightings on today's trip with 3 minke whales, basking shark, porpoise, common seals with their pups, golden eagle, storm petrels, puffins, fulmars and diving gannets! Can anyone spot who won the Mars Bar today?! :-)
Whales, sharks and dolphins - 25th June
Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 25th June 2012. Amazing conditions and sightings today... 4 basking sharks, 50+ common dolphins and at least 2 minke whales!! Also white tailed eagles, porpoise, storm petrels and the seals at our favourite lunch spot who are getting bolder each time we visit! :-)
24th June - Trip to Coll, Lunga and Staffa.
One of the bottlenose dolphins we saw around 6am this morning leaving Tobermory Bay on our way to Coll, what a wonderful start to a fantastic day at sea! :-)
We’ve had a great day with the lovely folk from the Isle of Coll aboard visiting Staffa and the breeding seabirds on Lunga. Here’s one of guide Ewan’s shots from the day :-)
Whalewatch Explorer 23rd June 2012
A superb adventure out at sea today for our whalewatch trip! Moderate winds and some wet stuff falling from the sky produced challenging conditions. We managed a brief view of a minke whale in one of our traditional feeding grounds, WT Eagle cooped up in a tree, 3 Storm petrels, arctic and great skuas, auks and also a pleasure to watch the likes of shearwaters, gannets and fulmars producing an avian master class! The trip today epitomised all that is good about wildlife watching: the challenge, persistence and rewards...well done to all on board! Ewan
Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 23rd June 2012. Very wet and windy conditions today, but this year orange is very much in fashion.
Wildlife Adventure 22nd June 2012
Wildlife Adventure passengers - 22nd June 2012. A sneaky minke whale and fantastic views of white tailed eagle in flight over Sula Beag. We also saw seals, diving gannets, feeding shearwater and had a brilliant plankton trawl! Great day! :-)
Thursday 21st June
Whalewatch Explorer passengers - 21st June 2012. Fantastic views of white tailed eagles soaring right over Sula Beag both at the start and end of our trip! Also basking sharks, golden eagle, puffins, diving gannets, fulmars, shearwaters and a lovely hour spent with the seals and nesting terns during our lunch break :-)
Wednesday 20th June
Another great day spent taking the Clan Maclean over to the beautiful Isle of Coll as part of their Centenary Gathering! Golden eagle, white tailed eagle, porpoise and basking sharks sighted in amazing conditions, check out the sea state on our way home, perfect!! :-)
Guide Ewan's video of the white beaked dolphins filmed from Sula Beag's bow on the Whalewatch Explorer on the 18th of June, stunning!! :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Eud2IHVC4&feature=plcp
Tuesday 19th June
Fun day aboard Sula Beag today as we took some members of the Clan Maclean Centenary Gathering across to the Isle of Coll. Glorious sunny afternoon and fantastic conditions, we saw basking sharks, minke whale and had lots of porpoise sightings along the way! Looking forward to doing it again tomorrow :-)
18th June sightings and passengers.
White beaked dolphins on yesterday's Whalewatch Explorer, 18th June 2012.
Another delightful sunny trip out in Hebridean waters as we tracked a group of White-beaked Dolphins in an early feeding ground. It’s our third encounter with the species which rarely get recorded in our research patch. Also three Minke whales including local celebrity Knobble! It was great to have RSPB’s Debby Thorne onboard who very fittingly found us a White-Tailed Eagle and helped point out all our stunning seabirds including Manx Shearwater, Gannets, Arctic Terns, Fulmars and Auks including Puffins. What a day! Get out there yourself and enjoy Britain's superb wildlife! Ewan
Sunday 17th June trip sightings
Wildlife Adventure passengers - 17th June 2012. Lovely sunny trip today with great views of the pair of white tailed eagles we sail past daily, common seal, storm petrel, Arctic skua, puffins and good numbers of feeding shearwaters, always a joy to watch! :-)
Sharks, dolphins and Springwatch!
Here’s the latest (very overdue!) Captain’s Log update for
2012… we’ve been too busy at sea making the most of this glorious weather that Mull is still having!!
We’ve had some great sightings including many basking shark
encounters. We had our first sighting of the year on the 12th of May.
We spotted hundreds of manx shearwater feeding hard on a tide line and headed
in their direction. Watching foraging shearwaters is a wonderful sight in
itself however it’s even better when they’re joined by three sharks gorging on
plankton! One individual, around 6 meters in length, swam very close to the
boat letting all those aboard have incredible views. You really do appreciate
their size when looking down on them from the deck of Sula Beag!
We have also seen many breaching sharks. More often than not
we just catch the huge
splash they create but if you’re lucky they may breach several times in
succession giving us all the chance to spot these massive creatures launch
themselves out of the water, a phenomenal sight!
There was more basking shark excitement for SLS on the 20 th
of May when we were lucky enough to be joined by Iolo Williams and the Springwatch
crew. It was a great success and within a few hours skipper James found the
sharks and the crew got the footage they wanted, Iolo
in the water with a shark!! We can’t wait to see the programme on the 11 th
of June. Mull will also feature in other
episodes including articles on wild goats and sea eagles so look out for those
too!
We have also been incredibly lucky with common
dolphins sightings, in the past week we’ve bumped in to them three times.
We never know when we may cross paths with dolphins as they move around so
quickly so it always such a treat. Common dolphins have great associations with
gannets and on all three occasions we have seen a feeding frenzy of diving
gannets amongst the dolphins, what a sight! On the 31 st of May it was
new first for me… we used the hydrophone and heard the dolphins as they played
around Sula Beag, truly incredible, never heard anything quite like that
before!
Minke whale sightings have also been good. We’ve caught up
with Knobble four times so far this season along with many as yet un-identified
whales. On one particularly still day (27th May) we were able to
hear a whale surfacing up to a mile away as it circled around us feeding hard,
another first for me and a wonderful sound!
Other very exciting news is the pair of white-tailed eagles
we sail past daily… it looks like they’re doing well this year as we’ve seen
the adults
bringing food back to the nest site, we’re crossing our fingers these
amazing birds continue to be successful.
For daily sightings and pics follow us on Facebook or Twitter and look out for SLS on
Springwatch on Monday the 11 th of June!!
Ruth :-)
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