There's no such thing as Basking Sharks

On 11th September four U3Aers and two Israeli guests accompanying David set out in steady rain and dark grey gloom from Armadale on the Isle of Skye, heading for Glamaig on the Scottish mainland, on a mission, the primary objective of which was to intercept and visually observe the elusive, some would say mythical, basking shark.

But this was not the start of things. On 4th September David had undertaken the same assignment without backup and, returning unscathed, had submitted the following report:

 The weather was fine except for 2 hours rain on Canna, but I walked to Sanday to look at the beaches and shoreline, and have now ticked off another Scottish Island from my list of to-do's.  Wind was OK as it was mainly westerly and so the east side of the boat was sheltered, but stood at the front all the way to Rum - the best view.

Sightings

On the way to the ferry,  very good view of a Buzzard with his rabbit breakfast, flew in front of the car trying to avoid sharing with three hoodies!

In Broadford, 6 Greylag geese flew across towards Armadale.

Loads of Gannets actively feeding, adults as well as juveniles.

A number of Great Skuas - 5 together at one point.

Big rafts of Manx Shearwaters 50-60 at a time, as well as loads of individuals and small groups all the way there and back.

Big Highlight - Storm Petrels - my first ever.

2 Basking Sharks just off Rum.  One a 100m from the boat - a very big one too, and a smaller one which passed alongside down the length of the boat about 25m away.  A good view and everyone excited.

Very distant Dolphin sightings, only briefly in the mist.

On Canna, walked round the bay to Sanday and as it was low tide saw lots of waders, 30 - 40 Curlew, Herons, Oystercatchers (of course), Redshank as well as Eider Ducks with juveniles.

Red Throated Mergansers with young.

On Sanday - Otter Spraint point - on a hill above the bay with fairly recent spraint.  Not Otters though.

On the way back 

Red Throated Diver

Guillemont - Adults and Juveniles

Black Guillemot - juvenile

Razorbills

Greater Black Backed and Lesser Black Backed gulls

Kittiwake - mainly Juveniles

and in Rum Harbour - much to the delight of the other passengers a White-Tailed Sea Eagle clearly visible without binoculars.  

So for a roughish day, very rewarding and well worth going.  

That sounds alright, we thought; we'll have a bit of that.

 Leaving mizzle shrouded Armadale.

 The ferry in Mallaig taking on passengers for Skye.

This sculpture at Mallaig bears the inscription "Look there wee Jennie, is that another o' them basket shark things? No daddy, it's just another gloomy ripple in the murky waves. There's no such thing as basking sharks".

We were finally underway on the ferry from Mallaig to Rum and Canna and all assembled at the prow of the boat, David adopting his best Captain Ahab pose, to scan the dull grey sea, rippling with endless black snaking wavelet shadows, in air dark with cloud and drizzle, for signs of the legendary beast. After about 5 minutes of this, some of us already had discomforting premonitions of failure.

 Guillemot (Uria aalge) having a quick flash to relieve the tedium of life at sea. Linda didn't dare retire to the warm, dry indoor luxury because she knew the moment she did that David would be screaming "3 basking sharks to port, huge things; school of minke whales to starboard; pod of dolphins dead ahead!".

 Loch Scresort; arriving at Kinloch harbour, Isle of Rum. Half the party disembarked here to have a rummage round Kinloch Castle.

 Gannets (Morus bassanus); yes, we weren't short of them.

 And more Guillemots. Though these things look deceptively stationary relative to the camera, we were wacking through the water at a relentless speed and some of these guys seemed to disappear under the boat with a surprising air of nonchalance.

 And then, the strangely sinister shoreline of Canna emerged from out of the mist.

 What is it about such places that conjures up ethereal hints of childhood nightmares?

 A juvenile (yellow patch and white breast) Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo - surprising it can fly with a name like that).

 They don't make 'em like that anymore.

 Infant swallows (Hirundo rustica), still being fed by their parents. It seemed a bit late in the year; hope they made it to Africa.

 Female Eider Duck (Somateria mollissima)

 Common Gull (Larus canus).

Redshank (Tringa totanus)

Twite (Carduelis flavirostris)

Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis)

Twite on wires...

...and in the air.

Twite all over.

Ragged Robin (Erithacus rubecula)

Bar-Tailed Godwit (Limosa laponica)? I'd go for this rather than the Black-Tailed because of the upward curve of the beak, the long supercilium (white area above the eye), and the pink base to the beak in summer.

Curlews(Numenius arquata) and Redshank.

A basalt sill, with the vertical cooling joints perpendicular to the original horizontal lava flow. Unlike Rum, Canna is thought to have a similar volcanic origin to much of Skye.

Bar-Tailed Godwit .

One final look.

We had plenty of time to get back to the ferry so we sauntered back with extreme casualness, arriving 10 minutes before departure, only to see the boat close its entrance, start up its engines, and begin to move away. We had thought it sailed at 3.15, but it was actually 2.45. Fortunately some chap on the jetty recognized us and they somehow managed to reverse the process and let us board. The gods had smiled on us at that moment as there were no more ferries for 3 days and who knows what bizarre goings on might emerge of an evening and a black night on this strange little island with its population of about nine humans and thousands of rabbits which are about to be killed en masse, accused of undermining the island's archaeological heritage. With images still flashing in our brains of the whicker man burning on a hillside, we collapsed into the reassuring comfort and safety of the ferry lounge.

Eventually we returned to the basking shark observation post and, with the rain gone and a slight brightening and clearing of the air, our hopes briefly rose again. But deep down we probably knew it wasn't going to happen. As on the outward journey, David once more spotted some porpoises, but by the time Linda and I had dashed to the side of the boat, there was of course no sign of them.

A beach on Rum.

More gannets.

Great Skua (Stercorarius skua)

The Isle of Eigg.

A house at Camasunary dwarfed by Cuillin slopes on Skye.

This stream, Abhainn nan Leac, brings water southwards from Blabheinn.

Rounding the Point of Sleat.

Lion's Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata). It was suggested on iSpot that it may have been dead or injured.

Ditto.

A participant in the annual Mallaig Herring Gull Knobbly Knees Contest.


There is a theory that the basking shark phenomenon is some sort of conspiratorial joke perpetrated by a few bad apples and that this in turn has led to so much frustration and subconscious wish fulfillment  that some, while staring for hours at empty, rolling waves, begin to hallucinate, projecting desired visions of these intangible creatures onto the dull screen of everyday reality. So perhaps it is pointless to continue searching as we will never know whether what we see is actually real, and of course, one can maybe apply this notion to the whole of life itself.