Hebridean Whale Cruises, Gairloch

Hebridean Whale Cruises, Gairloch ORCA1 THE N #1 WHALE WATCHING BOAT IN SCOTLAND!!! Every year we encounter the most Whales, Dolphins, Seals, Puffins, rare and pelagic birds.
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We are proud to provide our customers with by far the premier sightings from any vessels operating from Gairloch. For at least the last 3 years Orca1 has been the N #1 whale watching boat in Scotland(boat based sightings submitted to the national cetacean monitoring unit)! Mid May to Mid September is traditionally the best time for encountering the whales, peaking from mid June onwards. In the earl

y season the Cetaceans are on the move and occasionally we encounter some of the Great Whales and unusual sightings like Pilot Whales. Minke Whale sightings are quite sporadic until May. From late August we have a wider range of species including Risso’s and White-beaked Dolphins. Occasional Humpback, Fin and Sei whale too. We have four resident Cetaceans in the Hebrides as well –
Harbour Porpoise, Bottlenose Dolphin, Orca (Killer Whale) and Risso’s Dolphin so these can be seen at anytime of the year. Basking Sharks tend to be late arrivals this far north, so it’s usually late August onwards for a good chance of encountering them. Please note that these are wild animals and come and go usually because of the availability of their prey species, so sightings cannot be guaranteed at any time of the year. But we go where no other boats go! It’s not just a trip around the bay we actively seek out these animals and we normally know where the Minke Whales are feeding!

*** BOOKINGS FOR 2026 ARE ONLINE *** 🐧🦅🐬🐋🦈Our Online Booking System is online !!! It took a little longer than normal, ...
09/04/2026

*** BOOKINGS FOR 2026 ARE ONLINE *** 🐧🦅🐬🐋🦈

Our Online Booking System is online !!!
It took a little longer than normal, but hopefully all is sorted now.
All who is eager to book, please visit our website and secure your seats for 2026. Hopefully the weather will also accomodate when you visit 🙂 .

As usual we start the season with cruises to the bird colony on the Shiant Islands 🐧🦅, where we can see Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills, Guillemots, Golden & White-tailed Eagles, Grey & Common Seals and possibly whales, dolphins and porpoises en route.
Our Whale & Dolphin cruises 🐬🐋🦈 will start in May, when more individuals start to arrive in the area and where we'll look for them in the North Minch!
https://www.hebridean-whale-cruises.co.uk/

Frequently asked questions -
1) WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO COME?
a) Mid-May/June to the end of October and avoid any U.K. school holidays if you can as it's not so busy and we can stay out a bit longer if required, plus it may be easier to re-book you if the weather isn't so great!
b) Best time for Orcas? Resident all year, but you have to be very lucky! From May to July there's an influx of orca to our region from Iceland. Try combining a cruise with us and a trip up to Caithness/Northern Isles in May-September.
c) Humpback Whales? Best chance in June and September/October.
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF THE CRUISE IS CANCELLED?
We will transfer you to another cruise if we can or refund your payment if we cancel the cruise. Full T&C's are on the booking page. We always recommend spending a few days in the area and booking more than one cruise with us if you are specifically coming up to go Whale watching!!!
3) PRICES AND BOOKING
https://www.hebridean-whale-cruises.co.uk/prices-and-booki…/
We may add more cruises if the demand exists.

Please browse this page for our historical sightings and all the photos that we have taken over the years!
We look forward to seeing you soon!!!

Cheers,
Hebridean Whale Cruises - team

WE ARE GETTING READY TO START OUR SEASON !!!Our season runs from end-April until September/October.We look forward to be...
28/03/2026

WE ARE GETTING READY TO START OUR SEASON !!!

Our season runs from end-April until September/October.

We look forward to be running cruises again in 2026.
- Starting our season with our Shiant Islands cruises end-April / early-May.
- After few weeks we'll shift our focus to looking for Whales and Dolphins as their numbers increase in the waters of the North Minch from mid-May onward.

OUR 2026 ONLINE BOOKING SYSTEM WILL OPEN IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

Please check our website or Facebook-page for updates when bookings for 2026 will be available. (Updated 28 March 2026)

EDIT: Our online booking system is open! Please visit our website to book.

09/08/2025

I think it’s fair to say the footage speaks for itself 🤩🐬🐳🐋🦈

Take a look at what Sharkman Dan captured while helping out on cruises recently 📸

09/08/2025

What a season so far! Humpbacks, Fin whales, Common and Risso’s Dolphins, a Basking Shark but the numbers of feeding Minke whales have stolen the show in 2025! Thank you to Sharkman Dan for the video!🙏🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🐋🐬

PROJECT P**P A GOOOO 💩🐋Here at Hebridean Whale Cruises we are proud to be a part of the community led Humpback poo proje...
02/08/2025

PROJECT P**P A GOOOO 💩🐋

Here at Hebridean Whale Cruises we are proud to be a part of the community led Humpback poo project to investigate the food sources of visiting Humpback whales to the Minch.

Last year our team showed that it is in fact possible to scoop up the p**p of these big beasties! After having had a season filled with magical encounters with these whales so many questions were raised on their sources of food in the Minch. This is just the beginning of something very exciting and by raising more awareness about this topic and the feeding behaviours of cetaceans here on the west coast maybe we can start to get some answers with time…

To find out more about this exciting project head over to HWDT’s news article and SAMS press release on this topic!

✅https://www.hwdt.org/news/whale-p**p

✅https://www.sams.ac.uk/news/sams-news-whale-p**p.html

Steve Truluck At Sea

Very sad to see an entangled Minke whale during one of our cruises 😞💔
21/07/2025

Very sad to see an entangled Minke whale during one of our cruises 😞💔

An incredible encounter with a pod of Rissos dolphins this morning on our 4h cruise! Beautiful photos taken by Andy Laws...
19/07/2025

An incredible encounter with a pod of Rissos dolphins this morning on our 4h cruise! Beautiful photos taken by Andy Lawson Cetacean Sightings 👏🐬🌊

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Gairloch
IV212BQ

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