Cetacean Disco

Kathleen Jamie

None of the crew were out of their twenties. Three Scots lads: James, Brennan and Hamish. Hamish led us - a silent group of eight, strangers to each other, but suffused with unspoken yearning - down pontoons to the boat. It was a glorious day in Tobermory. The sea sparkled, the sky was blue, the hills of Ardnamurchan and Sunart, across the water, seemed amazed by the light.

As we nosed out of the bay, James climbed barefoot up onto the viewing deck, and sat on the floor. He apologised for his visual aids: a file of pictures still soggy from yesterday's rain. He began telling us what we might look for, what we might see. Minke whales. Porpoises, for sure. Male orcas have long straight dorsal fins. Minkes are forty feet long, about the length of this boat. He told us the highlights, like the time they encountered a school of 150 common dolphins, or last year's sudden influx of orcas - killer whales. Minkes don't show their tail flukes when they dive. 'If you see tail flukes', he grinned, 'shout! And look for rafts of feeding birds. If they suddenly lift away, it could be because a whale's about to breach beneath them. But, you just never know. You never know what might turn up.'

Might turn up, but probably won't.

Whale-watching, cetacean-watching proceeds like a kind of theology - by glimpses, sightings, a dorsal fin, a rolling back. A pursuit for the regretful; all might-have-beens and what-did-we-miss? You can buy a little field guide to fins.

As we rounded the point of the lighthouse, raft after raft of Manx shearwaters lifted from the water before us. A couple of gannets passed overhead. Then we were out at sea and heading straight toward a vast, rust-coloured container vessel, the Ambassador, as it steered into the Sound of Mull. Clinging onto the chrome rails, we thumped and bounced over its wake. The lads were sitting on the roof of the wheelhouse, eyes shaded against the glare. A century ago, these would have been the very men putting out with the whalers, out of Stromness and Stornoway, to get themselves locked up in the Arctic ice. Now, for a fee, they were showing the whales to us.

The boat pitched and rocked. The low islands of Coll and Tiree slumped across the southwestern horizon. North was Eigg, and the abrupt hills of Rhum, where storm petrels live. But all around us was water and, above, clear sky. Cloud was piled up over every heave of land. Over the water, however, the sky was bright, untroubled blue. In the salt wind and sunlight, you could feel your skin tighten. There was nothing but the sparkling sea, the islands, the too-bright sky. We were all quiet, watchful, until the woman beside me poked my shoulder and cried. 'There!'

Two dorsal fins, travelling north, side by side.

'Those are Risso's dolphins!' Hamish called. 'Good start!'

You get your eye in, quartering the sea, moving your gaze from the middle distance to middle-far, out of the dazzling band of sunlight spilling from the southwest. At first every wave seems a rolling back, every cormorant a fin but-

'Minke whale! Two o'clock!'

What you see is a dense, black curve. Neither a wave nor an island. The whales rise and tip slowly, almost with a laze or languor. Everything else glitters, but among the glitter rises a thick black crescent. Usually the eye works the other way, ready to pick out a gleam in the dark. Today we were watching for a heave of blackness amongst all that light.

Six o'clock! Did you see it?

Another - four o'clock!

James made tea, brought it up the ladder in insulated plastic cups with slightly sentimental paintings of British wildlife. I got badgers, the women beside me jays.

Then the dolphins arrived, as you might say, out of the blue.

We were moving in wide zigzags, seeing what we could see, and then suddenly they were all about us, port and starboard, bow and stern, aligned with the boat and travelling at pace with us, leaping and diving. The lads were cock-a-hoop. James swayed with one hand pressed to his forehead - I don't know what they are! 'They arenae common, arenae bottlenose. This is amazing!'

He rummaged through the Cetacean ID book, grinning.

'What do you think? That one or that one? We've never seen these before!'

'I think that one. That yellow bit on the flank...'

'I agree. Hamish?'

But Hamish, in the wheelhouse, was already on his mobile. 'Hey, we've got forty white-sided dolphins out here! No, really!'

The propulsion of the boat pushes the water ahead of it into a clear, thick band, and that's where dolphins like to be. We were lying down, side by side, leaning out over the low deck so we looked straight down into the water. They'd come alongside, dark powerful streaks, vanish for a moment beneath the boat, then loom up directly in front of us, their outlines sharpening as they rose. When they breached, they were almost close enough to touch. With one fluid movement, they'd arch clear of the water, breathe, then the blowhole closed, the fin followed, and down they went.

'Babies! Oh, for God's sake, will you look at the babies!'

I don't know whether they always travel like this, the mothers with young at the centre, flanked by wingers and outriders, but in the bow-wave were two, three, such pairs - muscular adults with young striving alongside like small earnest shadows. We clapped and shouted, cheered when they leapt clear.

Then: 'Whale! Lunging! Behind the dolphins! God almighty! Cetacean disco!'

When we cut the engines, a great silence fell, like the silence of the beginning of the world. Then there were bird calls, and the gentle plashy sound of dolphins. Brennan, as skipper, cleared his throat, put on his professional voice. 'As you may have realised, this is a first...' But then he was laughing again: 'Thirteen years - we've never seen white-sided dolphins. I mean, they exist but usually way out west in the Atlantic. Not around here.'

Someone said, 'All we need now is killer whales.'

James said, 'Damn. Brennan, did you mind and book the killer whales?'

But the mobile rang and Hamish answered. 'That's them now. They're gigging in Stornoway. Gonna be ten minutes late.'

For a while, we all travelled north together, dolphins and boatful of people. In the binoculars, I could see two small energetic wind turbines on the foreshore of Eigg. Behind, a little to the west, rose the hilly hulk of Rhum. Behind again, the hills of southern Skye. Then, abruptly, the dolphins peeled off northwest, and we watched them go, their dorsal fins rising and falling.

We watched until we could see them no more, and it was time to turn back to harbour. By then the sun was setting behind Tiree, flushing the cliffs of Ardnamurchan with calm light. The water was sheeny in the gloaming. We all sat quietly side by side at the front of the boat. A gleam reflected on the bow rail dazzled us all the way home.