A WHALE OF A TIME

On a hot Saturday in August, me and my friend John Allan MacRae went to the beach. We played football and went swimming, it was perfect. We had drinks and crisps. Will Tunnell came on to the shore, just behind a rock where we were. We went over to see him and talked. He gave us a crab and we waved goodbye as he set off again. We got back and started to pack up, but just as we were about to leave, John-Allan noticed in the water there were fins. Our immediate reaction was SHARK!, so in a rush we dropped everything and followed them along the shore. As we got closer one jumped, it was a magnificent sight, it was then we realised they were killer whales. John Allan was really excited and his Mum came over to see what we were looking at. John Allan took the binoculars and we took it in turns to watch them. There were about 9 or 11 and the whale at the back was HUGE and you could see most of it when it jumped. I thought to myself, "This is incredible, these are actually killer whales." Or Orcas as they should be called. We followed them for as far as we could but they started to head out to the big deep blue ocean. We got back to John Allan's house and phoned Richard Fairbairns, a man who takes people out Whale Watching in his boat, from Mull. We told him what had happened. I don't know what he said, but he asked if we wanted to go out on a Whale Watching trip because he was coming over to Coll to collect the Cricket team. I got the day off school, and me and John Allan went out with Richard. IT WAS GREAT! We were lucky enough to see a Minke whale and lots of dolphins.

by Sandy Munro

Arinagour Primary School, October 1995