A Little Rain Never Hurt Anyone!
A Grey Day in Many Ways
The Moray Firth, in fact, most of Scotland, isn’t exactly known for its glorious weather; we’re already beginning to think that our summer is already over with the past couple of weeks of brilliant weather. With today’s flood warning and poor wind forecast, there was not a lot the firth had going for it. Dolphin Mischief was called off for the entirety of the day; and a good thing too, as we discovered this morning that the horrible rain overnight had actually resulted in the Mischief sitting up to its console in water! It’s a wonder she hadn’t sunk! Shore support Alan spent part of the late morning running the bilges to get it high and dry again. Dolphin Spirit was more lucky, and managed to get out into a somewhat unwelcoming firth!
Two Shades of Grey
Despite the 100% chance of rain all day, we were hoping people would turn up to come dolphin-spotting; when we have days like this it’s a bit of a double edged sword. Wet weather, for systems influenced by rivers like us, is fantastic, as it encourages a lot of positive fish behaviour and floods the river of tempting pheromones and actual fish to attract the dolphins. On the other hand, it seems to do the opposite for passengers. Two very brave visitors joined us at 12pm, much to our delight; having seen Kesslet pottering around the river mouth around 9.45, we were hoping she would still be around for our passengers to see. Sadly, she decided to stay hidden for most of the trip, but a glimpse of a fin near the big waves at the Kessock Bridge gave us at least a bit of hope that she may have still been about. And doubly sadly, we will never know if she was, because our 12pm was the only sailing to go out today! Seems like everyone forgot that even without the snuggly waterproofs our 12pm passengers were wearing, you can always stay warm and dry in Dolphin Spirit’s heated cabin! Hopefully a few more people will turn up tomorrow; it’s looking like a bit of a horrible week weather wise, but our dolphins don’t mind, and neither should you!