Stornoway Bound
The last day of June today, how time flies. Not so long ago the blue veiled mountains of the Outer Hebrides beckoned us towards them every time we touched upon one of the western headlands of Skye; and thanks to the fine public bus service on that island, the beckoning happened numerous times.
A view witnessed for millennia by Skye dwellers and now preserved in the Museum of Island Life at Kilmuir, a village on the northern tip of Skye, with our hopeful destination, after Gairloch, making a ragged and enticing horizon.
‘At the crack of sparrows’, to coin one of Rob’s favourite phrases, the crack being 4.55am, he slipped our mooring lines in Badachro and I nosed Zoonie out of the little estuary back into Gairloch.
The previous evening had given us the gift of a magnificent sun setting on the gently sloping headland to our west and now it returned for our last day of summer heat and still winds.
The Old Man of Storr, we so recently hiked to, stood out like the sore thumb; a more respectable version of the numerous legends, and I the one I prefer.
Our hint of a change in the clement weather was the falling barometer; nothing dramatic but a weakening in the high-pressure system and a nudging from the approaching low.
One hundred Gannets were plunge-fishing making impressive white plumes of spray together in spectacular style and gatherings of guillemots worked with puffins, dipping more gently into their other world; they always are a delight to watch, I could only imagine what they looked like beneath the waves.
The only other vessel in sight was a dark shadow on the horizon to the north. She didn’t look like a fishing boat and a glance through the binoculars suggested a national security purpose. Then a helicopter circled overhead and back up towards her. ‘Hmmm’ I thought, time for a look at her AIS. The chart-plotter screen showed her blue triangle in location with the helicopter over it. I’d never seen that combination before.
She is the Ievoli (that’s a capital i) Black, a 230-foot tug patrolling our seas, keeping us safe from the Ruskies (joke, maybe).
I liked this version of events, as the helicopter circled over its mothership.
We entered a big bay on approach passing Arnish Point Lighthouse, designed and built by Alan Stevenson, another uncle of Robert louis, in a break from the norm of brick or stone, instead using iron plates lined with wood in the construction. Glumaig Harbour just behind the lighthouse is an industrial site which includes a quarry and the new £49 million deep water port is under construction to provide facilities for Cruise liners, the renewable energy sector and aquaculture. The extraction of rock from the hills behind the working cranes reminds me of a slightly pinker version of the white cliffs of Dover. I wonder what the locals think and what the ecological and environmental effects are likely to be.
We arrived just after midday, Zoonie’s engine having powered the Dessalator which made and heated water; meaning we were squeaky clean and there was washing to be hung out. A warm welcome awaited us with hands of strangers taking our lines and a harbour lad providing us with paper-work to be filled in then, and an impressive brochure to be of much use later.
Most of the town was closed because it was Sunday; but on our afternoon reconnoitre it seemed many businesses were closed from Sunday through to Tuesday or even Wednesday. There were lots of hairdressers and I was in need of one, so whoever was open on Monday would get my business!
In fact Patrick at PJ’s did a great job, while we put the world to rights between us. He even discovered I have a double crown; I always knew there was something wrong!!
A pair of Arctic terns buzzed around the marina as we returned to Zoonie. Remarkable little birds that live in a perpetual summer, flying between the Arctic and Antarctic, constantly, to avoid the winters. The remains of a ringed female were found nearby and she had done that mammoth annual migration 34 times; so in their lifetime they can fly anything between 500,000 and 750,000 miles.
Well the dark grey skies are approaching from the west, the barometer has dropped overnight and by three millibars or down to 29.25 inches in the last two hours, so while not all that low, the rate of the drop is significant.
I had to laugh yesterday when the BBC news reporter apologised for the incorrect temperature being given by the weather department. The two had apparently been left off the front of the figure. Well it wasn’t far from being accurate up here!
A couple of days ago a 76 foot Beneteau arrived in the marina and used her bow and stern thrusters to snuggle in to the berth right next to the harbour wall. For all you Minecraft designers, she is called the Ender Pearl, although her connection to the game is as yet a mystery to me. She does have a competitive spirit and has recently taken part in The Baltic Sea Race, and since then came in first; taking 26.5 hours to cross the North Sea in the Bergen Shetland Race. Reputedly well balanced under sail which is ideal for both human and auto helms, she has winglets on her keel. Hmm, another modification for Zoonie?!
She is amongst numerous yachts that have been arriving ‘around the top’ from Scandinavia and the east coast of Scotland and is twice the size of Zoonie, as you can see in the photo…
Zoonie is second left from the lifeboat…
Stornoway harbour and Town Centre, founded by the Vikings in the early 9th century, languishes in a Temperate Oceanic Climate where cabbage palm trees thrive, I know because I’ve seen them!