I make my way towards the bow of this little boat precariously. The deck rolls about and jumps beneath my feet, something I find pretty disconcerting. I’m not a sailor, I have spent most of my life on land and I’m finding one of my first experiences at sea in a small boat a little tricky. You know where you are with land, it mostly stays where it is. I’m a mountaineer so you can take my word for it that Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest mountain pretty much stays put. But the Sea, I have discovered, runs about all over the place.

This bit of sea, under the small boat I’m on in an expedition to see whales, clearly has a mind of its own and has been jumping all over the place ever since we sailed out of Tobermory harbour in search of whales. I’m attempting to make my way to the toilet but that’s not too easy as I’m having to cling on to the furniture on the boat for grim death to avoid being hurled overboard. After some acrobatic minutes when the boat seemed to be performing cartwheels I make it into the bathroom. That’s where the fun starts as the toilet seems pleased to see me an leaps up from the floor in greeting. I’m spending most of my time trying to avoid colliding with the various bits of ironmongery that surround the toilet. Actually using the loo for its intended purpose seems to be a pipe dream. Pardon the pun.

I won’t go into details but I managed to use the bathroom without being beaten to death by the toilet bowl. I emerge from the gents feeling like I have survived a rite of passage (sorry) I am now an old sea dog who can manage to go for a pee even when the vessel he’s on is going down with all hands.

You can have a whale of a time on the Scottish islands. I’ve just started to explore the Isle of Mull and I’ve begun to realise that getting to know this island off the west coast of Scotland might take me a lot longer than I expected. There are 360 miles of coastline on Mull alone. That’s a lot to explore. Much of the coast is remote and inaccessible and covering all the coast would be a few weeks expedition in its self.

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We sail on past Ardnamurchan point, a remote outpost with a striking light house. The sea boils bright with light, air and foam. Away from the island we have sailed towards the mainland and here the land reaches down into the water with rocky fingertips. In places the land slopes gently into the water giving birth to hidden bays and small remote beaches. In other places sheer cliffs sweep down from the land, speckled white with sea birds. Hidden beneath the waves the cliffs plunge deep into the sea, creating dark, silent refuges for the sea life that abounds here.

I’m on a Sealife Surveys cruise out of mull looking for whales and dolphin. Andy Tait has been volunteering as a spotter for them for over twenty five years. He tells me how sea life has declined in these waters over the years he’s been here, especially basking sharks which were once common and are fast becoming a rare sight. “I remember when they used to say you could walk from Ardnamurchan to Mull on the backs of basking shark. You used to see one and another below it and another below that and so on. Now you’re lucky if you see one or two.” He tells me that the plankton in the oceans have declined 40% since 1950. Plankton are the insects of the sea, the foundation of the food chain and, without them, all marine life suffers. Basking shark are hit more than most by this decline as they feed directly on the plankton.

We sail on for an hour or so and the swell slowly settles as we pass beyond Ardnamurchan point. Now Andy sits high beside the boat’s wheelhouse to pick out the tell tale clusters of sea birds that give away the presence of bait balls of fish that will draw whales to them. “Dolphin!” he yells and the boat turns. Suddenly we are surrounded by something like 150 dolphin. They come in close to the boat, leaping and playing in the pressure wave from the bow.

I have seen dolphin before but only as distant glimpses of fin from the shore. Close up they are an amazing sight as they twist and turn in the water and leap into the air. This close you can appreciate their athletic powerful bodies, so full of muscle that they are perfectly adapted to master their habitat. Then someone shouts whale as a Minky whale breaches nearby. I’m looking in the wrong direction and miss it.

read more about my misadventures in The Last Hillwalker 

All the crew of the Sealife Surveys cruise light up with excitement. Their enthusiasm for the creatures that inhabit this marine world is obvious and infectious despite the many times they must have travelled this stretch of water.

 

I didn’t manage to see a whale, they were always popping up where I wasn’t looking but I wasn’t disappointed. My view of the dolphins was reward enough and I’ll always have the whales to look forward to.

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