About a month ago I wrote a blog post about my time living in Scotland as an Erasmus exchange student. As you might remember at the end of the exchange I got an internship at SAMS (Scottish Association of Marine Science) as well. This post is dedicated to the time I spent in Scotland as an intern.
The previous semester I lived on Campus, but as these accommodations are only available for students I needed a place to stay. Luckily before the summer break I had contact with a first years student who was looking for a flatmate for half a year. And as my internship would last for half a year, it was perfect. So I moved to Oban and lived in a little flat on a very very steep hill. Honestly I never really got used to climbing the hill and the stairs on the hill, I still feel the steepness in my legs when I think about it. But I absolutely loved to be living in the town of Oban and get to know the town even better then I did during my first period in Scotland.
Because this time I was an intern and thus didn't have any homework and didn't need to study, I had much more time to go and explore the west coast of Scotland. The first adventure started before I had even started my internship, it was still the summer break. I had spend my 2 month summer break in the Netherlands and returned to Scotland in the end of August. Because, together with a group of students, we had planned a sailing trip to the isles of Tiree and Coll in search of the Basking shark.
Before the summer break we already had been on short day sailing trips, I was absolutely fine with being on a sailing boa. But upon going beyond the isle of Mull into the Atlantic ocean the feeling of being comfortable on sailing boat disappeared quite quickly. The ocean swell in combination with a strong wind left me feeing quite unwell, well if I am being completely honest it simply left me completely and utterly seasick.
Seeing my first ever minke whale definitely made me forget my seasickness for a moment.
This minke whale breached the water surface a couple of times right next to the boat. At first we just heard the blow, our heads immediately turned to the right to see what it was. And in that moment I forgot all my misery and rushed to get my camera and got luckily enough to snap this shot of the minke whale. Little did I know at the time that my internship project had actually been changed from a harbour porpoise research to a minke whale research. When I found out later this moment felt even more special. The seasickness disappeared after the first day, the swell is just something your body needs to get used to. The main reason for the sailing trip was to look for basking sharks. And we did found them between the islands of Coll and Tiree. As good marine scientist we kept our distance from these magnificent sharks. But it was amazing to see the three black spots on the surface. The three spots being; the nose, dorsal fin and tail. We visited the isle of Tiree as well. And like other islands of the Hebrides Tiree has a beautiful white beaches and such clear waters you nearly start to think you are on a tropical island. I left earlier the trip earlier then some of the others as I wanted to arrive on my first day as an intern completely fresh and not very exhausted. So I took the ferry from Tiree back to Oban. On the way back I saw a large pod of common dolphins. It most be said that the Scottish west coast is a whale and dolphin hotspot, with a quarter of all cetacean species being sighted in and around the Hebrides.
Beginning of September I started with my internship and dove for the first time into the world of acoustic data analysis. What would I do in a day? Well sort the data and let an automated detector run over the data. Then I would look at the automated detection and be a judge on the sound being a minke whale or not. Perhaps it sounds a bit tedious, but honestly I loved going through the data, and I learned so much about the sounds of the underwater world. Like the sounds of fishes, the sounds of ourselves (not a fun experience), the calls and songs of minke whales. What did I do with all this data? Well I looked at the seasonal distribution of minke whales along the east coast (North Sea) of Scotland. I'll put a link to the research paper that got published at the end of this post. And I will talk about the sounds of the ocean and our human sounds in a separate post. What I really loved about working at SAMS is the people and the surroundings.
When I started my internship there was also a group of PhD students from all over the world starting at SAMS. During break time we would go on short walk around the peninsula where SAMS is based. Its views like this that would made you feel relaxed immediately and almost as if you are on a vacation. As I mentioned before because I didn't really have homework, I had plenty of time to go on day trips with the other students. And over the months I loved seeing the transition from late summer to autumn and to winter. In the Netherlands autumn and winter is basically one long autumn season, with perhaps 1 or 2 days that really feel like winter, the rest just wind and rain( that's how I feel anyway). But here in Scotland being surrounded by nature I felt more connected by the seasons.
Like seeing the autumn sun shining on mountains and forests. Seeing the top of the mountains slowly turning white as a little sign of the coming of winter. During the autumn/winter period you also have to most breath taking sunsets. Living directly at the coast means that you can rush to the sea and take in the sunset in all her might and glory.
I believe that until this moment, this is definetley one of the most beautiful and breath taking sunsets I have seen! The circumstances were simply perfect. A calm sea, some clouds over head and now clouds on the horizon. I remember that I was about to cook dinner after a long day sitting behind my computer in the office, when I saw the colours changing in the sky.
I decided that dinner could wait and that I should be right at the coast. It was a low tide which mend that I could leave the boulevard and go on to the beach. Seeing the sunset behind the isle of Kerrera and seeing the colours explode in the clouds I was in complete awe. Then in the corner of my eye I saw that Oban itself also turned pink. Simply stunning.
Places I visited that really got stuck in my memories:
Scotland, and the UK for that matter in general, have so many beautiful castles and ruins. One of my favourite is definitely Kilchurn castle. We didn't visit the castle itself, but crossing a field to the edge of loch Awe and see the castle from across the water might even be better then seeing the castle from up close. We went to this castle two times once in the autumn and once during winter. That winter day was absolutely amazing, we went into the Highlands of Scotland and into Glencoe and glen Etive. We had some snow during winter in the Netherlands during my childhood, but I never had experienced this much snow. Being knee deep in the snow, experiencing -15 Celsius during the day. It really felt like an adventure.
Lets keep with the castle theme for a bit. Castle Stalker. North of Oban in Loch Linnhe lies a small Island with one ruin, this ruin is castle Stalker. The whole coast line of Loch Linnhe all the way to Fort William is beautiful.
When you go past Fort William and Ben Nevis (highest mountain of the UK) you can visit a sight that people might
recognize from the first Harry Potter movies. The Glenfinnan viaduct. There is a steam train that travels over this rail way, but the steam train only rides during the summer but even without the steam train this railway bridge is still recognizable.
Closer to Oban I climbed Beinn Lora in the snow. The view from this mountain is stunning (see gallery for photo). A island that is easily accessible is the Isle of Kerrera.
The ferry to the island is just south of Oban and the ferry only takes 5 minutes to cross. On landing you can hike and or bike (if you brought you bicycles across) over the island. Kerrera is a small but long island, and the hike to the south end isn't that long or difficult unless you decide to go over the top of the hills of the island. That may or may not be something we did! But again, when in the west coast of Scotland and stand on top of a hill or mountain, the view is stunning. From seeing the other islands of the Hebrides to Oban and the mountains of the main land. On the southern most point of Kerrera lies, once again, a small castle. Gylen Castle, stands on a cliff and has a perfect lookout over the sea and the islands.
Ohmy. Looking at these photos and writing about Scotland, this post almost feels like a visit Scotland post. Ah well, living in Scotland and being able to go on these little adventures in the weekends made living and working in Scotland almost feel like a vacation. And I only picked out a few highlights, I will add some additional pictures to my gallery. There are still places I have yet to explore, I still long to go back and I miss being in Scotland. To be honest one could say I am a bit ''homesick''. During my time in Scotland I never missed the Netherlands, sure I missed my family and friends but never the country itself. What I loved the most is the people I met and the landscape of Scotland. Where if you felt bad or had a difficult day, you could quickly escape into nature and clear your mind.
It's been three and a half years since I left, I do think back fondly about my time in Scotland. In the end it was an amazing year, I arrived in Scotland in January 2017 thinking this would be an five month adventure but it turned into an adventure of a year. In the end I returned to the Netherlands in the end of January 2018. It's not strange that I miss being in Scotland. For when I returned to the Netherlands I suffered from a reverse culture shock. Everything about Scotland was just calmness and friendliness and above all take your time there is no haste. And it took me quite some time to get used to the more busy live style of the Netherlands. I guess its mostly the difference of how populated an area is, Oban a small, slightly remote town, compared to IJmuiden, also a small town, but with big cities such as Haarlem and Amsterdam in close by there is just so much going on.
I learned much in my time living abroad and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Without this adventure I don't think I would have done any acoustic whale research. I probably wouldn't have found out that my childhood dolphin passion, still is my passion in combination with other marine mammals. I also did a course with ORCA (British charity for cetaceans) to be a marine mammal surveyor. And I probably wouldn't have had such an amazing thesis subject as I did. The subject of my thesis was similar to my project internship. My project internship was focused on minke whale acoustic research and my thesis was on Humpback whale acoustic research for Wageningen Marine research.
Safe to say that I slightly fell in love with Scotland and hopefully soon after this pandemic I get to visit the Scottish west coast again. And be in place: ''Where the skies reach out for miles, I want to feel the breeze of the Hebrides, On the far side of the world'' lyrics taken from the song Far side of the world - Tide Lines. Tide lines is a Scottish band that I got introduced to and I still listen to them very frequently.
Link paper acoustic minke whale research:
Link to the song Far side of the world - Tide lines
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