Today the SAMPHIRE team have been in Gairloch, meeting the local maritime community. We first stopped on at the local glass-bottom boat operators who were very helpful and wrote up a list of the local scallop divers and skippers for us to contact. We then dropped in to the Gairloch Marine Wildlife Centre and spoke to Ian French, a long time resident and expert on marine life. He is a font of knowledge on the  local area and passed us lots of useful info and contacts on heritage in the area. Finally we spoke to some of the local fishermen who very kindly invited us on to their boats.

A busy start to the day in Gairloch, the glass-bottom boat, the Gairloch Maritime Wildlife Centre and meeting with local fishermen.

Our second stop in Gairloch was the spectacular local Heritage Museum. We met retired local fisherman Derek Roxborough who was in the museum for the day demonstrating how to make and repair fishing gear. He gave us an impromptu tour of the boats in the museum’s collections and gave us a first-hand account of their use and subsequent preservation. We picked up some exciting leads on unreported marine archaeology sites which we hope to chase up later in this trip. Watch this space!

The SAMPHIRE team learning a few things about the local fishing industry at the Gairloch Heritage Museum.