Today was our final day of collecting data in and around Skye so Jennifer, Kerry, and Lois had to wake up bright and early to meet Martin on the boat. Dylan and Mike had a relaxing lie in while Lewis analysed his scallop samples. The plan was to focus solely on Lois’s camera drops. The sun was shining, and the water was flat and clear – the perfect weather for taking photos. Martin examined Lois's homemade camera rig and deemed her knots "Very good, almost excellent." High praise indeed from a man who has worked on the sea in and around Skye for 35 years.
They steamed out to Scalpay to the seaweed farm and began dropping the camera rig, letting the rope go slack (signalling that the weights had hit the seabed), and then hauling the entire contraction back onto the boat. As you can imagine, it was a laboursome process. While this was happening, various information had to be taken down so the whole team was working hard. With sometimes 30m to pull the camera back up from, it took a lot of arm strength and some getting used to, but the good weather and magnificent views were well worth it.
Lois periodically checked the footage, allowing her to adjust the angles and lighting as needed, and she saw a star fish and possibly an octopus in the photos! The camera often got caught on the many lines of kelp that ran under the water so we had to haul them up and untangle the entire contraction. It turns out, you can eat sugar kelp raw. Martin took some pieces straight from the line for us and it was surprisingly good.
"It's nice, it's a little bit salty..." - Jennifer
After eating lunch on the deck (cheese sandwiches, caramel wafers, breadsticks, and Haribo‘s), we completed a couple more drops before heading over to see the nearby salmon farm. The fish were huge! We lowered our camera to see if we could get some footage of them under the water but we were out of luck. Jennifer steamed us back from the seaweed farm and her face tells the whole story.
Mike and Dylan were waiting at the pontoon and took over from Kerry and Jennifer on the boat for the rest of the afternoon. Although the wind picked up a little, it remained dry and sunny which is all we could ask. While the rest of the team were on the boat, Lewis, Kerry, and Jennifer hung out at the pontoon in the sunshine. Lewis went for a swim, Kerry had a nap in the sun, and Jennifer was splashing about in her wellies. As they were leaving, they saw a seal!
On the boat, left to right: Lois, Mike
They returned to camp so Lewis could continue analysing his samples while Kerry and Jennifer went swimming. The weather was still gorgeous and Jennifer floated about in the water for almost half an hour while Kerry took the time to sunbathe and collect seawater for Lewis's analysis.
They returned to camp and were quickly met by the rest of team who had just finished their research on the boat. Lois managed to complete all of her camera drops and is now faced with the daunting task of combing through the hundreds (maybe thousands?) of photos of the seabed, looking for marine life. None the less, she had a great time on the boat and said it was so nice to get out and do real field work after a year of University online.
"It was gorgeous!" - Lois
Once the whole team was back at camp, we got ready in a frenzy to get to the pub in time for our reservation where we were excited to have a meal that we didn't cook over a camp stove. With Kerry's phone streaming the football at the end of the table, we settled down with drinks, burgers, fish and chips, and Lois's leek tart. The food was brilliant! The football, not so much. But we didn't let it ruin our evening and enthusiastically tucked into desert.
Dylan with Jennifer's burger
Tomorrow is our final day on Skye and our day off so we will be gearing up to go hiking before we have to pack up our camp and drive down to Oban for the second leg of the expedition.
We can't wait!
The Seaweed Team
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