Farm yard noises at sea

If at first you dont succeed, try, try again. And so we did. We waited in the dinghy for three, one hour slots today hoping for the wind to come in. First we tried in the bay between Tresco and St Mary’s, watching as various fishing boats, ferries and tour boats cruised past us. One ferry driver even took his binoculars out to try to see what we were doing. Just watching him watching us.

Joe cleaning out the engine cooling water filters. There’s lots of sea weed here. Both Stew and Islay at different points during the day ran over a patch causing the foilboard to stop abruptly and sending the rider flying forward into the water. Sadly neither of these are on film.

In hopes there’d be more on the windward side, we waited again, this time at the end of St Mary’s runway. For such a small place I’m surprised how many planes come in/out. It seemed like every 20 minutes we saw another one go by. Over the last few days we’ve been seeing them touch down in St Mary’s then take the short hop across to Tresco, barely leveling off before starting their approach to land again. Must be a great view from up there.

Eventually we did get going heading on a downwind course towards Lands End, which we could see in the distance. Unfortunately 13 miles in and the wind disappeared, just as we were about to enter the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS). This is effectively the super highway for big tankers heading up the channel. There are two “lanes” in which any smaller crafts, such as Mentor and definitely kitesurfers, are advised to cross quickly. So, as luck would have it, our kites dropped out the sky just there.

Jeremy came to our rescue, collecting both of us, and our water soaked kites before we followed Mentor out of the TSS. We’d only been going for about an hour but it was already 14:00 so Joe threw us some snacks. Not sure if it was the smell of food or just the fact there was a slow moving boat, but in no time at all we were surrounded by about 20 birds. All hoping we had something good to eat. Do gulls like Pringles? They obviously weren’t pleased with not getting anything, they all started making strange noises. Didn’t sound like birds – one sounded like a cow while another was more like a trapped kitten. Made us all laugh trying to match the sounds with what animal we would have naturally thought the sound was coming from.

A full day on the water and we’re back to where we started. Hopefully more success tomorrow. The wind certainly looks more promising!

Can seagulls smell food?

Most songbirds you find in your garden have very small olfactory (smelling) glands, and rely heavily on their sight to find food, perching on the tops of trees to get a better vantage. Gulls are the same; riding currents, watching out for disturbances in the surface of the water or for the behaviour of other birds as an indication they have found something. Their good eye sight is why once one gull has round the food, often others will soon follow, resulting in the fighting and noise spectical we had today.

There are however always exceptions, vultures, kiwis and some gulls, including the albatross are known to have a good sense of smell. The storm petrel can even smell its prey from 25km away.