The weather gods are shaking their fists at us again, forcing the Artic Sunrise to seek shelter in one of the three large bays of Stronsay in the Orkney Isles. Which is bad news for our mission, but good news for the 'twitchers' amongst the crew as the island abounds with birdlife and we've arrived here smack in the middle of the breeding season. Large colonies of gannets and fulmars live on the cliffs to the south and west, and there's also a loch and marshes which are havens for ducks and waders including the rare pintail (perhaps only 50 breeding pairs in Britain). And there are land (as opposed to sea) birds here too - swallows flew overhead as we lowered our anchor chain yesterday evening.
Stronsay looks almost like two islands, joined together by a slender ridge of sand dunes. About seven miles long, it has a strange shape which according to the tourist guide has been described as being "all arms and legs". The same guide also says it "prides itself on the friendliness of the inhabitants" - which I'm sure is true but unfortunately, because of customs and immigration laws, we won't be able to discover for ourselves, being unable to land. Or take a look at any of the neolithic archaelogical sites,which include a well preserved chambered tomb dating from 3000BC.
What we can do is go out in one of the inflatables and take some photographs of Stronsay's other great wildlife resource - seals. Grey seals used to be comparatively rare in Orkney, but now perhaps a fifth of the British population are found here. The best time to see them in large numbers is in the Autumn when they come ashore to breed, but there should still be quite a few, together with their cousins, the common seal, visible around the beaches at this time of year. If we get a 'weather window' this afternoon we'll go and find out.