Day 5
This morning was a 3.45am get up, a cup of tea, and then we walked down to the Victoria, loaded our gear and set off for the island. Stanislav, the captain (Stani), took us straight in to the shore of the island and we landed ourselves and our gear without getting wet.
We set up on table rock with a self-inflate mattress to sit on, or catch up on some rest, and food for our 14 hour stint at being castaways. The tide was on the ebb so we chose a rock to settle on and looked out for the Belugas. There are three main pods along this stretch, although there is a lot of interaction with individuals and whole pods joining together for what appears to be social reasons, the pods rolled, breached, jumped and tail slapped. There were whole stretches of times when there were few or no whales to be seen. At one point we watched for about an hour as several Bellugas interacted in what apppeared to be mating behaviour. There was a steady stream of red-breasted mergansers, as well a several small flocks of Eider.
This morning was a 3.45am get up, a cup of tea, and then we walked down to the Victoria, loaded our gear and set off for the island. Stanislav, the captain (Stani), took us straight in to the shore of the island and we landed ourselves and our gear without getting wet.
We set up on table rock with a self-inflate mattress to sit on, or catch up on some rest, and food for our 14 hour stint at being castaways. The tide was on the ebb so we chose a rock to settle on and looked out for the Belugas. There are three main pods along this stretch, although there is a lot of interaction with individuals and whole pods joining together for what appears to be social reasons, the pods rolled, breached, jumped and tail slapped. There were whole stretches of times when there were few or no whales to be seen. At one point we watched for about an hour as several Bellugas interacted in what apppeared to be mating behaviour. There was a steady stream of red-breasted mergansers, as well a several small flocks of Eider.
During one quiet spell we went for a walk round the island,
There were lots of tern chicks and lots of terns still on eggs. We had to dodge the terns dive bombing us as we walked. There were lots of terns loafing on the rocks and Dunlin and Oystercatcher pottering round the water's edge.Around the
landward side we found a couple of pairs of Turnstones, acting very cautiously, we then saw 2 chicks pottering
in the rocks and vegetation.
There was plenty of bird art dotted about the foreshore.
During the day 2 osprey flew past and a steady stream of people visited during low tide, brought by the cross-country vehicle with huge tyres, making little impact on the sand. One officious russian guide demanded that David moved out of the edge of the water, declaring that it was disturbing the whales who would have come closer! They were about 15/20 meters away! We had plenty of time to watch the terns coming and going, feeding their chicks and just loafing.
During the day 2 osprey flew past and a steady stream of people visited during low tide, brought by the cross-country vehicle with huge tyres, making little impact on the sand. One officious russian guide demanded that David moved out of the edge of the water, declaring that it was disturbing the whales who would have come closer! They were about 15/20 meters away! We had plenty of time to watch the terns coming and going, feeding their chicks and just loafing.
Dinner was a repeat of yesterday with it being left in the dining area of our room so we took it to the microwave before eating the chicken rissole and rice with tomatoes. We then returned for a good night's sleep.
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