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 12^th 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 (27^th 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 :-)