The Bass Rock: which boat trip to book, and when they actually run

Three miles off North Berwick there is a lump of volcanic rock that turns white every spring. That is the Bass Rock, and the whiteness is northern gannets, tens of thousands of them, on one of the largest colonies of the species anywhere. The Scottish Seabird Centre has been counting them by drone: 51,844 apparently occupied sites in June 2023, 46,045 in July 2024 after avian influenza tore through the colony in 2022, and 52,459 in a survey flown on 3 July 2025 by the Centre and its research partners. The trend is the story. The colony was badly hit and it is coming back.

First, the season

This is the thing to check before you book anything else in North Berwick. The boats run from roughly late March to early October. Between early October and late March there are none at all. If the Rock is the reason you are travelling, look at the sailing schedule first and build the rest of the trip around it. Every trip is also weather dependent and cancellations are routine, so do not plan a tight same-day return train around a marginal forecast.

The six trips, and how to choose

All of them leave from below the Scottish Seabird Centre at the harbour, and all are operated in partnership with Seafari Edinburgh. They are genuinely different products. One warning before you start comparing: the Centre's own boats page lists only four of them, while the booking site it sends you to lists six. Work from the booking site.

Seabird Catamaran Cruise. Seventy-five minutes, out to Craigleith and around the Bass Rock, on a 55-seat catamaran built for the job. Adult £32, child 16 and under £15, under 3s free, running April to September. This is the family option and the one to pick if anyone in the group would not enjoy being thrown about. You get the Rock at close range and a stable platform to look from.

Puffin Express. Thirty minutes on that same 55-seat catamaran, out around Craigleith and back, and much the cheapest way onto the water here: adult £16, child aged 4 to 16 £8, under 3s free. Craigleith holds close to 10,000 breeding puffins and this trip exists to go and look at them, which means it only sails while the birds are on the island. When this was checked in mid-August the booking site was showing no dates for it at all, which is exactly what you would expect once the puffins have gone back out to sea, so look at the calendar before you build a day around it. Well-behaved dogs are welcome, as on the longer catamaran cruise.

Three Islands Seabird Seafari. The same seventy-five minutes on a rigid inflatable, taking in the Lamb, Craigleith and the Bass, late March to early October. Adult £39, child 16 and under £28. Faster, wetter, more exciting, and closer in to the cliffs. There is a minimum height of 1.3 metres and it is unsuitable if you are pregnant or have back or neck problems.

Isle of May Round Island Trip. About two hours by RIB out to the Isle of May, taking in Craigleith and the Bass on the way, April to July only. Adult £47, child £42. The May is a national nature reserve with its own puffin colonies and it is a bigger day out than the local islands. You do not get off the boat.

Isle of May Landing Trip. The other May trip, and a completely different day, because this one puts you ashore for about three hours instead of sailing round the outside. Adult £70, child under 16 £50, with a minimum height of 1.3 metres. The May is run by NatureScot, a warden meets the boat and explains how to keep clear of the nests and the young birds, and you then either take a short guided introduction from the Seafari guide or wander the island on your own. The operator calls it the largest puffin colony on the east coast of Scotland. Sailings were listed into late September when this was checked, so it runs later in the year than the round-island trip does.

The Bass Rock Experience, which the booking site calls the Bass Rock Landing Trip. The serious one. A landing on the Rock itself, £200 per person, over-16s only, late March to early October, aimed squarely at photographers and people who want to stand inside a gannet colony rather than look at one. It is not a general-admission boat trip and it is priced accordingly.

One detail that applies to every trip and that people consistently get wrong: waterproofs are not provided. Bring your own, including on the catamaran.

If puffins are the point

Two of the six trips are built around them, and neither is the one most people default to. The Puffin Express is the half-hour catamaran run around Craigleith at £16 a head, and the Isle of May Landing Trip is the three-hours-ashore option at £70. Book one of those rather than a general Bass Rock cruise and hoping.

Puffins nest on Craigleith, the nearest island to the town, and their season there is earlier and shorter than most visitors assume. If puffins are the reason you are coming, go early in the summer rather than late, and check with the Centre before booking rather than assuming a July trip will deliver them. The Centre's SOS Puffin project exists precisely because invasive tree mallow had been crowding out the burrows the birds need on Craigleith and the Lamb, and you can see the difference on the islands from the water.

What you get without paying anything

Quite a lot, as it happens. From the harbour wall or from Milsey Bay with a decent pair of binoculars, the Rock is clearly visible and clearly white in season, and the gannets are constantly moving between the colony and the fishing grounds. On a still day you can hear it. It is free, it costs nothing but a walk, and for a lot of visitors it is enough.

The Scottish Seabird Centre itself is the middle option, at £13.50 adult and £9.00 for a child aged 3 to 15, with concessions at £11.25 and a family ticket of two adults and two children at £38.50. What you are paying for is remote cameras you control yourself, trained on the Bass Rock, Craigleith, the Lamb and Fidra, plus an outdoor viewing balcony with telescopes and staffed spotting sessions. For 2026 the Centre added 360-degree camera systems streaming live from the Rock. The Centre reckons on a visit of about an hour and a quarter. In winter, when the boats have stopped, this is the substitute, and it is a decent one: the cameras still show the Rock.

Practical bits

The Centre's opening hours move by month: 10:00 to 18:00 from April to August, 10:00 to 17:00 in February, March, September and October, and 10:00 to 16:00 in January, November and December, closed on 25 and 26 December. Boat tickets and Discovery Experience tickets are sold online in advance and at the information desk on arrival, but advance booking is recommended at weekends and in school holidays.

Park in the harbour car park beside the Centre, which is pay and display 09:00 to 18:00 at £3.50 for one hour up to £10 all day, and free from 1 October to the end of February. Or leave the car in Edinburgh entirely and take the train, which puts you fifteen minutes' walk from the boat.