From our marine volunteer holiday with basking sharks, whales and dolphins (including orcas) in Scotland (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/scotland)

Time to say goodbye to the first team 😦

Yesterday we had an excellent grand finale to the expedition when we had a close encounter with two minke whales foraging together north of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. As you can see in the photo only one at a time would pose for us!

So in just under 500 miles we sighted harbour porpoises and seals (common and grey) every day plus six basking sharks, three minke whales, hundreds of guillemots, cormorants, gulls, kittiwakes, gannets and shearwaters and a handful of puffins. All these sightings were plotted on a map of our route (see below) as we travelled and this will be added to the huge amount of data collected by volunteers every summer, which is analysed and used to help protect these incredible species.

A big thank you to the team – Irina, Marcus, Judy, Emily, Verena and Michael and the crew of Stuart & Tom and scientist Olivia!

Roll in team 2!

From our marine volunteer holiday with basking sharks, whales and dolphins (including orcas) in Scotland (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/scotland)