EcoVentures, Cromarty

EcoVentures operates from the Harbour Workshop on Victoria Place in Cromarty, founded in 2004 by skipper Sarah Pern after she returned to the town to work with an Aberdeen University research team studying the Moray Firth's bottlenose dolphins. Pern had previously skippered boats for the wildlife operator Dolphin Ecosse and crewed expedition yachts to Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falklands before setting up her own company. EcoVentures runs wildlife-watching trips on a custom-built 9.5-metre RIB into the Cromarty and Moray Firths, looking for dolphins, seals and seabirds in the waters around the historic town. The business trades as a single, independently skippered operation rather than a franchised tour company, and Pern continues to skipper trips herself after two decades on the water.