Silurian's own 'Into the Blue' moments
The 'Blue Planet II: Into the Blue' extra has given us a fascinating insight into the efforts it takes to realise the wonderful footage we see on our screens each episode.
Like the Blue Planet series, it takes a huge amount of preparation, effort and dedication from our team to deliver our Cetacean Research Programme aboard our research vessel, Silurian. Over the coming weeks, members of the team will share their own ‘Into the Blue’ moments, highlighting some of the most memorable times aboard Silurian.
Dr Lauren Hartney-Mills, our Science Officer, shares one of her treasured moments…
“One of my best moments at sea was in the Summer of 2016, on my first survey on HWDT’s research vessel, Silurian, when we had a group of 16 and 17 year olds on board. It was such a beautiful day. The sea was flat calm and it was sunny; perfect conditions for spotting marine wildlife. We spotted a minke whale who was just as interested in us and our boat as we were in it! It swam under and around our boat occasionally rolling on its side alongside us looking right up at us. It came so close we were worried it was going to bump into our GoPro! Truly magical!
A lot of people don’t believe we even have whales and dolphins in Scotland, but it is one of the best places in Europe to see whales, dolphins and porpoises and the great thing about our surveys at HWDT is that anyone can join them. We take 6 volunteers with us on every survey and we train them how to be marine mammal scientists. Anyone can be involved!”
Filmed from aboard Silurian during a Teen Team Monitoring Expedition in 2016.