Scotland Holiday & Dolphin Watching July 2004 -
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For our 2004 holiday in we travelled to the Highlands
of Scotland, renting a comfortable holiday cottage near Nairn in
Morayshire. Our reason was to enjoy a fantastic Red Letter Day
gift we received to go dolphin watching on the Moray Firth with
Sailingwild on board 'Dolphinicity'.
This is page one of three.
page 1 | page 2 | page 3
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650 miles after leaving Sussex we arrived at our Scotland holiday
cottage in Piperhill, near Nairn, Morayshire. Belinda was just
about to make Mike a wee cup of tea to drink in the conservatory.
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Looking the other way from the last picture, here's Mike admiring the
view across the Scottish Highland countryside towards Nairn on the
Moray Firth. Our holiday cottage was certainly in a lovely
setting.
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On the first day of our holiday in Scotland we visited Nairn and after
lunch in a nice wee café we heard bagpipe music and found this
bandstand complete with a band playing. Beyond the bandstand is
the Moray Firth and, way in the distance, Inverness.
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Back in the holiday cottage now, day 2 and Mike cooked the
breakfast. Now this guy can multi-task, stirring the scrambled
eggs and baked beans at the same time! Pity the sausages burnt in
the grill and the popped-up toast went cold. Nice pinny though!
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On our second day in Scotland we partook our Red Letter Day trip to go
dolphin watching. The first part of of the experience took place
at the WDCS Moray Firth Wildlife Centre at Spey Bay.
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At the Wildlife Centre we saw an exhibition and video on the dolphins
and other wildlife found in this area of Scotland, together with a
complimentary tea in the café. These are some murals we looked at
outside.
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Dolphins are often spotted on the Moray Firth from the WDCS Wildlife
Centre and here Mike thought he'd spotted one! We were given the
Red Letter Day experience as a Christmas gift by Belinda's sister,
Clare, and this was the main reason for going to Scotland this year for
our holiday.
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After leaving Spey Bay we drove west along the Moray Firth to
Lossiemouth for the second part of the experience - a cruise out on
'Dolphinicity' with Sailingwild and skipper Tony to go dolphin
watching! So after getting tangled in the life jacket and safety
rope we received our safety instruction and set sail...
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...leaving Lossiemouth behind. Despite it about to rain it was
quite bright out on the Moray Firth, hence the squint. The 36ft
ketch Dolphinicity uses Bio Fuel and pollution filters and is one of
the most environmentally friendly dolphin watching vessel afloat.
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With skipper Tony from Sailingwild at the helm, we spotted some
dolphins away in the distance and headed in their general
direction. The sails on Dolphinicity couldn't be used on our
cruise as there wasn't enough wind that day.
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Mike was all set to dolphin watch and film the dolphins we hoped to
spot out on the Moray Firth. Unfortunately it started raining
just as the first dolphins appeared - well, it was Scotland after all.
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Wow! We were well rewarded with dolphins coming up on both sides
of the yacht and gracefully ducking and diving before our very
eyes! We shot some video too, see our highland video page.
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It's behind you! An acrobatic dolphin performed a huge leap out
of the Moray Firth and back again. Sailingwild's policy is to
cruise up to an area, cut the engine and wait for dolphins to come up
to the boat rather than the other way round.
Please see our tourist resources page
for links to relevant dolphin watching websites.
(Update 2007: Sailingwild is no longer trading.
However there's other dolphin spotting operators)
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So our with our thrilling trip over the Sailingwild boat Dolphinicity
was once more moored in the harbour at Lossiemouth. What a
fantastic dolphin watching experience! Our Highland holiday continues with a trip up the
Cairn Gorm Mountain >>>
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