Whales in the Moray Firth

What luck we’ve had so far… This leg has been filled with more marine wildlife wonders. It’s funny how we were so excitable at the sight of puffins, guillemots and gannets, and now they are common sightings. We have been very excitable in the last couple days with sightings of dolphins and whales!
The beginning of the leg was rather quiet weather wise, so it was a rather gentle motor up the coast to Peterhead. On board this week we have Steve, Ben, John, Emma and Laura, and our volunteers for the week are Felicity from Skandia and Kim and Piers Rowlandson from the Trust. It’s a rather full house, with bodies everywhere, but all are getting on well.
We were quite lucky with the weather in Stonehaven, and the new crew arrived to a bright sunny, beautiful evening. We attempted going to the beach for a swim, but only managed to get as far as our knees in the water before we came up with the usefull excuse that there were jellyfish in the water and so needed to get out – nothing to do with the freezing North Sea temperatures! I was feeling a little sheepish, as we had managed to go for a swim on the last day of leg 8 with the crew, but I suppose there was a little more breeze. I don’t quite know how Karen and I are going to manage our Loch Ness challenge – we have a bet on that we are both going to swim around the boat in Loch Ness, but after seeing our poor performance in the relatively warmer waters of the North Sea, I think we might just struggle. We may just have to bend the ‘no wetsuits’ rule (although that would be cheating, and that’s no fun!).
The sail from Peterhead round the Rattray Head corner to Whitehills was better than expected. We had rather light winds forecast, but once out there was a good 10 to 15kts from the NE, giving us a good reach round the corner and then run towards Whitehills. Kim is probably more excitable than me when it comes to whale watching. It started off with a debate amongst the whale-watching crew on the stern as to what a noise they had heard was. Kim, Ben and John spent ages talking this over, then came the first splash that got everyones attention. Next thing we saw a whale come all the way out the water- amazing! This is not something seen everyday, and to see whales broaching four times is quite special. But, unfortunately they where a bit far away to get a good photograph, so according to Frank, it doesn’t really count!
We got into Whitehills marina yesterday evening, with a pretty tight entrance into the harbour. I’m glad we got in yesterday though, as it would not be fun trying to get in with a bit of a swell running (impossible at times). It’s a nice little marina though with good facilities. The little village is quaint and pretty, and comes with the usual friendly Scottish hospitality.
The wind is freshening out of the North, and again, how lucky are we that we got round the corner yesterday. It does however mean that today we will have to go straight to Inverness, as the strong Northerlies tend to cause a bit of a hazardous entrance into or out of Buckie harbour, which was our next intended stop. So, not wanting to get stuck in Buckie for the rest of the week, we will be sailing on. We should have a great day out though, with a good beam reach all along the coast.
Many thanks to BT for supplying us with a dongle which has managed to keep us online and able to update our twitters etc. WiFi is not always available at the ports we’ve been to lately, so this access has been incredibly helpful.
Scarlet has been behaving pretty well, except for a small technical issue with the forward heads. A very big thank you goes to our superhero Simon Townsend, who got into his engineering mode and helped us out – you’re a legend Simon.
Off to Inverness we go, and hopefully see some more exciting wildlife. Ben already has his whale watching dance on the go….