Whale watching

We went on a whale watching mission today. Starting at Gairloch and going right out to sea.

Bear in mind, we are a good ten hours drive from Sheffield, you would expect people around here to have thick Scottish accents... They don't. I haven't heard a Scottish accent since Glasgow! When we got on the boat, the man started doing the safety speech and ended by saying "we might not see owt". We've driven all this way to get away from Sheffield and our sailor is from Sheffield! Small world!

About half an hour out, we spotted a load of birds feeding in the water, apparently that is a good sign as the birds eat the same type of fish as the whales. We hung around for a while and then saw something bobbing towards us. A few minutes later, a little head popped up to say hello...




She swam round the boat, looking at each of us individually, "have you got fish? How about you, have you got fish? You? What about you? No?" and with that, she was off!

We set sail again, eyes glued to the water, hoping to see a glimpse of a fin or a plume of water.

We saw plenty of bird life and some gorgeous scenery but still no sign of anything fishy!










Sailing back with sunken hearts, I thought I spotted something in the distance. Jumping up and down I shouted to everyone else to have a look too. Drew stopped the boat and turned off the engine. He'd seen something else. It looked to me like five dolphins frolicking in the water, leaping in and out.

Drew said they were porpoises and he'd seen two on the other side of the boat. We waited a while, hoping that they would come close enough for a photo. They didn't, but our friend from earlier came back to see if we'd managed to find any fish.