High seas diary: Part three
Post categories: High seas diary
| 14:11 UK time, Monday, 12 October 2009
Woke to a beautiful clear dawn out in the North Sea. We left the harbour at Symbister last night at around 10.30pm. Symbister is the capital settlement of , an island five miles long by two miles wide, home to Britain's most northerly golf course, 1,000 souls and three pubs. We had limited time so no chance for a round of golf before departure. Then again, I don't play golf so no tears there.
There is a crew of ten onboard, me and Jesse. Jesse is fantastic ornithologist and is here to assist, shoot second camera and to stop me falling overboard. Or least tell someone if I do.
Five minutes out of the harbour the North Sea welcomed us with a reasonable swell. Sea legs were taken by surprise, so there was a lot of staggering and bumping into walls to begin with. Being dark with no horizon to fix on, on a constantly rolling and pitching boat the old stomach did take a little longer to figure out what was going on. Took to my bunk before I did myself or the floor a mischief.
The nerves of the last few days of waiting dissipated with the dawn of a new day. It's now a waiting game. Once we locate a reasonable shoal of mackerel down go the nets, up come the fish and we'll be on deck to keep our eyes peeled for opportunistic killer whales coming in for an easy meal.
As always, there are no guarantees. We're certain to find the fish, but we just have to hope and pray that there are whales in the area when we do.
Looking out the window of my cabin I'm struck by the general absence of birds. Distant gulls and gannets are all I can see now. A very perky wood pigeon has just flown past a port hole. Amazing that away out in the open sea you can see a woodland bird flying over the waves. He took half a look at the boat as a possible resting place, but decided to carry on. He seemed to know where he was going anyway... So he's one up on me.
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