Oh Danio Boy

Aground on the islands; MV Danio (John Walton)

The Longstone lighthouse looks on (John Walton)

The nearby Big Harcar (John Walton)

Just for scale - a local fishing boat (john Walton)

Seahouses lifeboat in attendance (John Walton)

Island map and location of incident

Saturday 16th March comments: The late winter appears to have just brought nothing but bad news for the islands. First we experienced a Shag 'wreck' with large numbers of Shags washed up dead in January and February.We then had a ‘scare’ of an oil slick off the Yorkshire coast last week (which was thankfully broken up by the bad weather)  and now this….

This morning at about 5am, the 80 metre (262 ft) vessel MV Danio travelling from Perth to Antwerp ran aground on the north facing edge of the Blue Caps/Little Harcar. The boat was carrying a cargo of timber, with a crew of six when it struck the island and became lodged as the tide receded. It is hoped that with the help of a powerful tug and the late afternoon high tide, the vessel will be re-floated and pulled clear. News suggests that the boat has a hole in the bow following the collision, but thankfully the 'double hull' design has ensured no spillage of fuel or oil has occurred.

We are just relived that this had happened outside the bird breeding season and we hope the boat can be pulled to safety without incident. Lets just hope this is the third and final bit of bad news we get this year.