Hebridean Island Cruises Supports New Marine Charity

Hebridean Island Cruises have become the first cruise line to come out in support of new marine conservation charity Sea-Changers.

In its 25th Anniversary year of cruises on the Hebridean Princess, the company will provide their guests with the opportunity to make a significant contribution towards sea-going environmental concerns. A recommended donation of £20 for each booking will be requested as the booking is made (guests can donate more, if they prefer).

Guests will not be under any obligation to make the donation, but all the donations made in this way will be collected by Hebridean Island Cruises and handed to Sea-Changers, which was established by keen conservationists Helen Webb and Rachel Lopata in 2010.

The new marine conservation charity was specifically set up to establish partnerships of this kind. All of the money raised by Hebridean customers will be passed on to relevant marine conservation charities and projects, with no administration costs subtracted. Sea-Changers will distribute the money to a range of projects, within one of the following areas:

• Marine Reserves/Protected Marine Areas
• Direct Marine Clean Up Action
• Education, Campaigning and Awareness Raising
• Species Protection and Research

For more information on Sea-Changers and their work, be sure to look up their website at http://www.sea-changers.org.uk/ or call 07909 897867.

For booking details of Hebridean Princess cruises, log on to this link with the UK luxury cruising experts, The Cruise Line Ltd.

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Iceland, Dublin, Faroe Isles and St Kilda

By guest blogger Steve Newman

To many of us, a cruise is made by the amount of wildlife we see from the deck or on land when taking organised excursions. To this end, Swan Hellenic has partnered with Marinelife, the marine conservation research charity, to bring a daily wildlife image blog to cruise passengers and the public alike.

The Marinelife team has been recording all sightings and engaging with passengers on board the Minerva throughout her visit to Iceland with a programme of presentations and deck watches. Marinelife’s team is writing a daily blog on the Swan Hellenic website to keep the general public up to date with a range of spectacular encounters, which include many hundreds of dolphins of multiple species, a Humpback Whale mother-and-calf pair and sightings of the infamous Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

Minerva will be returning to Iceland sailing on a round trip from Portsmouth from 21 July - 05 August 2011. She will be visiting four ports on the “Land of Fire,” including the capital Reykjavik. Iceland is place renowned for its ice fields, volcanic springs and thundering waterfalls. The ship will also call at Dublin and Torshavn in the Faroe Isles.

Apart from elation at the coastal scenery and the wildlife, there is sadness on this trip, too. It rather depends on how it affects you, but I defy anyone not to be moved when you’re on St Kilda. Fifty miles out from the Western Isles, even as you start to approach you wonder how people could have lived here. This feeling is enhanced when you pass where the young men climbed the cliffs to collect seabird eggs in swells they would have regarded as nothing but have many visitors clinging to the rail.

Surviving until the 1930s, when they asked to be evacuated, you wander among their stone houses (above) now numbered and marked with the occupants' names, trying to imagine how they eked out a living here and marvelling at their dry-stone walling skills. The sadness comes when you discover that in just one egg collecting trip, almost half the young men of the island were lost in heavy seas.

Having visited both here and Iceland, I can assure you you’ll be left with memories that will stay with you for ever.

For those wishing to know more, Swan Hellenic will be exhibiting at the Cruise Show in Birmingham in October.

For more info in the meantime, go to http://www.swanhellenic.com

Time Spent at Sea has moved and can now be found at World of Cruising. You can follow World of Cruising on Twitter and Facebook for the very latest in cruise news.

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