Tag: volunteering marine

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!

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The longest day; our last full day of surveying and what an exciting one!

61 miles, 6 basking sharks, 1 minke whale, plus the “usual” harbour porpoises and seals.

As you can see everyone spent time on the deck getting up close and personal with the basking sharks just off Coll and Tiree. Then on our way back towards the mainland we encountered our first whale, a “stinky minke” just off Ardnamurchan. Stinky, because you can smell you are in the presence of the whale. Michael also listened to the clicks of a pod of dolphins when he was using the hydrophone. Although the dolphins must have been quite close unfortunately no one saw them. However, we have another chance tomorrow on our way back to Tobermory, so flippers crossed..

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We are now exploring the sea lochs on the west side of Mull (in other words sheltering from bad weather and rough seas) and are back in communication with the outside world! Our route has taken us south as far as Northern Ireland and we spent Sunday night anchored at Rathlin Island, County Antrim before heading north again, stopping off at beautiful Colonsay, and back to Mull.

We have seen lots of harbour porpoises and on Sunday we beat the onboard acoustic detection technology – volunteers 12 : hydrophone 7!

As you can see in the photos everyone has been studying hard to brush up on their sea bird identification skills and the whole team have had a chance to pretend to be a bird by climbing 6 m up the main mast into the crow’s nest.

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Weather: a bit of everything

Heading: Coll and Tiree

Other sightings: Common and grey seals

Over and out

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

We have uploaded more photos. As we make our way south and away from the internet you will now hear less of us (good! I hear you all shout). We’ll be back with sightings and other reports in due course.

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

Today’s “catch” was 17 harbour porpoises and two seals. We’ve had some rough conditions, but nobody was sick. We’ve also had some excellent brownies for “second breakfast” and a great Thai dinner. We’ve come into Craobh Haven for the night to shelter from the strong winds. Tomorrow we’re heading south towards the island of Islay and will see what the weather brings. Videos below

http://youtu.be/IRxTLSL2kEY.

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

Team 1 has arrived safely and we have had our first 24 hours on the research vessel. Yesterday we had introducations and some safety briefings before going for a last shop and turning into our bunks pretty late, although still light at almost 23:00.

Today we’ve had our science training in the morning and our first survey run. It’s been dry, but overcast, but some bad weather is moving in, so for now we are staying in some sheltered lochs.

Our first sighting today was a harbour porpoise and everyone has been busy switching stations: observer, data relayer, data recorder, listener, etc. We’ve also had our first lunch out of cups on the run/survey.

No more videos for now as we snatch the odd patch of GSM coverage to get this to you. So here are a few pictures from our first 24 hours as we are sailing by Duart Castle.

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Yesterday we arrived at Tobermory on Mull and we have brought the rain with us! Stuart the skipper tells us it has been glorious weather for the last week, but it will now be unsettled for a few days. Saturday is forecast to be the worst with high winds, so Stuart has planned a route that will take us into a sheltered loch to hide from the worst of it; better weather is forecast after the weekend..

Preparation: The research yacht is all fuelled up and the crew have been busy loading on all our food for the expedition – as you can see below

All ready for group 1!

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Weather:

18 deg C, overcast during the day, positively beautiful in the evening, no rain! Forecast not so good – see http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2635754. Looks like we’ll be feeding the fish with lots of wind an wave action. And the midges are flying high.

Preparation:

The boat is coming in from a research outing as we speak. This year’s first basking sharks sighted.

Video update:

See you Wednesday, och aye – innit?

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Here’s now Kate’s welcome.

As you can tell, Kate’s not too comfortable in front of the camera, so we have also added a video of someone who is VERY comfortable, in fact could probably not survive for longer than 48 seconds without a camera lens being pointed at them, to the blog.

http://youtu.be/f17G_wSLp90

You must watch this extremely interesting video of utter relevance to the future of our planet until the end and expect to be tested during the expedition. Or you could watch http://youtu.be/pGifZhozLVA and really learn something.

Continue reading “Update from our marine volunteer holiday with basking sharks, whales and dolphins (including orcas) in Scotland (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/scotland)”