We have had a slight delay in our blogs due to a lack of wifi access for our field team. The team are now back in Edinburgh and we’ll be sending out some blogs on what we got up to during our last few days of community engagement fieldwork.

On Friday the 15th of May Team SAMPHIRE began the day in Stranraer and then headed west to Portpatrick where they met a local fisherman Robert Campbell. Robert helped us identify a few wreck locations in the area and also gave us the background to several old anchors we noticed scattered around the town. We documented the anchors before we headed south down the Mull of Galloway to Drummore. Unfortunately the harbour was empty in Drummore and we weren’t able to track down anyone who knew of sites in the area but we were able to document a small wreck of fishing vessel in the foreshore area.

After leaving Drummore we headed to the Isle of Whithorn. Here we were directed by the locals to the local harbour master Shaun McGuire. Shaun was able to point us to several new wreck locations in the area. Sean was also able to give us the history of a very large anchor that was mounted outside of the Whithorn sailing club. Evidently it had been snagged in trawling nets several years earlier, south of the port and donated to the sailing club. Though we are not sure on the exact date yet, it is clear that the anchor was from a large sailing vessel.