Visitors arrive,the sun shines and the boat trip of a lifetime.
Rodney and Libby arrived up on The Pentalina on Thursday afternoon and so of course the sun shone, the wind ceased and Orkney was at its beautiful best. It always seems to do this when we have visitors and occassionally even when we do not have visitors.
We had originally arranged to take the boat trip round "the flow" that we had won in the Children in Need auction on Thursday but I had made a cock up about the dates, thinking that Rodney and Libby were arriving Wednesday. Fortunately when I phoned Magnus Woolham there was no problem about re-arranging it for Friday.
By now you dear reader will have probably heard ad nauseum about the boat trip but you are going to hear it again.
It started out a lovely sunny calm morning and we went down to Burray pier where we met up with Angus and Jean who were also coming on the trip as the auction was for upto 6 people.
The two Magnus's and Jon launched the boat at the slip and came round to the pier where we all boarded, then off into the flow at high speed. I think that Magnus Woolham is very proud of how fast his boat will go and likes to impress/frighten people.
We had a good tour of this end of the flow with a really good commentary, looking at the wartime defences and batteries and seeing the obligatory seals and puffins before being dropped off at Lyness on Hoy for a look round the museum and lunch at the cafe. Magnus Spence and Jon had been diving for scallops on our way over and went out to do some more dives while we were at Lyness.
We had arranged to get picked up at 2PM for the return trip and were thinking that perhaps we should have arranged a later pick up time as we had not really had time to look round the museum. As it happened though, in light of later events, our timing was perfect.
We boarded the boat again and set off round Flotta where we stopped to refuel in the shelter of the old submarine nets between Flotta and The Calf of Flotta. Almost immediately after we started up again Magnus Woolham spotted a fin in the water so steered over to have a look. It appeared to be a large basking shark so everyone on board was very excited as you do not see them close up very often.
I was very pleased as this was a real bonus and would make Rodney and Libby's trip to Orkney very memorable. More was to come though.
Magnus Spence climbed up onto the top of the boat to get a better view as the shark came right up to and under the boat and he along with Rodney and Pam saw that the shark had spots right down its back. Magnus also thought that it was the wrong colour for a basking shark and that the front of the mouth and nose were the wrong shape. Amongst his many other talents, Magnus is a marine biologist and has probably seen more basking sharks than most people. What could this be then. It may be very exciting.More of this later.
Unfortunately this is the only photo that I got of the shark.
After the shark had got bored with us and swum off, we continued back towards Burray. Within five minutes however Magnus Woolham shouted that there was a whale fluke ahead so he hurried over to where he could see it.
As we got closer we could see the whale was thrashing about and even with my limited knowledge of whales, it did not look right.
Now you have to ask yourself what would you do if you saw a 45 foot whale thrashing about wildly in the sea and obviously in distress. Staying in the boat and moving a bit farther away to a safe distance would probably seem like a good idea.
Magnus Spence however had other ideas. He grabbed a snorkel and jumped off the boat to see what was the matter. A minute or two later he returned to the boat and informed us that the whale had got a creel rope tied round its mouth with a load of old creels on the seabed fastened to one end and tangled with a rope to some more creels at the other side.
By this time the whale was visibly weakening. Every time that it tried to come up to breath it had to lift all the creels from the seabed and it was tiring rapidly. A little while longer and it would not have the strength to lift the creels and would have drowned.
Magnus asked if anybody was in a rush to get back home but I don't think that he expected an answer to his question.
Without any hesitation,and without thinking of himself, Magnus Spence donned his scuba gear and dived over the side again to swim down to the whale and see what he could do. Jon put his gear on and waited in the boat in case Magnus got into trouble.
I have since been told by several people that this sort of behavoir is what they would all expect of Magnus. He is very well though of.
Magnus managed to get down to the whale but as it was thrashing about a bit and the 6 foot long fins were getting a bit close for comfort, he went further down and came up the creel rope as far as he could. He then cut the rope and it slid easily out of the whale's mouth.
The whale then swam off without even popping up to say thankyou and give us a little display.
Magnus was over he moon when he came back into the boat but then who wouldn't be when you have just saved a whale's life.
I later found out that all the women on the boat had been thinking that the whale was about twice the size of the boat and were worried about it capsizing us as it thrashed about. This had not occurred to any of the men who were just enthralled by the nearness of such a magnificent and huge animal. I sometimes think that we are not just different sexes but almost different species.
After a little time after we all had a few minutes to calm down and repeatedly say "WOW" to each other, we set off and returned to Burray pier without any further adventures. Jon suggested that we try and get "The Orcadian" and Radio Orkney" interested in the rescue to give Orkan Adventures a bit of publicity. If any of the crew tried to publicise it then the newspaper and radio would not use it because it would be classed as advertising. I agreed to try and get a bit of publicty for the two Magnus's. From the pier it was straight into the pub to continue trying to get our heads round what had just happened. Then back home and after checking my photo's and videos, phone calls to the paper and Radio Orkney.
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