Totally black!

Total blackness can be hard for some people to imagine but here at the end of the road I can rarely see any man made light that I’ve not created myself. Not even the glow of a nearby town, the light from nearby house and certainly no vehicle lights. If there is no moon and it’s a cloudy night then the blackness is total! This mornings bout of blackness, as is quite common at this time of year was accompanied by driving rain and a certain reluctance to do the ‘100 yard dash’ to the Land Rover for my insulated cup. Any sensible person living on the west coast would retrieve their coffee cup the night before thus reducing the 3 journeys to 1 but me I’m a bit of a wuss and like to fire up the ‘Eberspacher’ diesel heater in the ‘old girl’ for 20mins before I leave for work!

Today was a ‘chainsaw day’ so I set off on the 11 mile journey to work before 6:30 in case I had to use it I’ve lost count of the number of fallen trees that I’ve had to cut or winch out of the way over the years on my way south. Not because it was dozens but because my memory is rubbish still it was more than six!

This morning however despite the full blown southerly gale that had been raging since the early hours my luck was in and I did not have to leave my centrally heated truck until I arrived at work.

As I said, I’m used to the total darkness in the morning around the house but by the time I get to the old Macleod stronghold at Brochel I’ve usually seen a navigation light or two from a fishing boat passing Loch Arnish or the flashing yellow light of a gritter on the Staffin road north of Portree. Certainly by the time the Inner Sound is in view I can see Applecross or Kyle glowing in the distance. Not today, not a single pin prick of light, not even Portree or Camus Tianavaig, all I could see, and that was not until I was 7 miles down the road was the glow from the new harbour construction site at Clachan. As that is powered by generators it was not until I arrived at Oscaig and observed a few lights in the houses there that I was convinced that the power was still on.

I don’t think the power was off on Skye, I just think that the weather was so bad that you could not see any of the lights!

The lack of any other illumination making the huge flood lights on the new pier all the more spectacular as they bathed the southerly swell that was raging at its foot. OK, I know the picture is cr4p but it was pishing with rain blowing about 50knots and dark

Sailing disrupted

The 7:55 sailing was of course out of the question, much to the joy of the school children that would now be saved the daily trip to Portree High.

 

A quick look on http://www.calmac.co.uk/service-status.html showed that most sailings were either cancelled or disrupted but by  9:00am the wind had moderated enough and swung around a little bit more to the west so we sailed. Though I was surprised to see the Ronja Commander still lying at anchor on one of my old clam diving spots off the Moll.

 

The change in direction and decrease in strength also saw the Kingston Lacy heading out to sea.

Lunch time even saw a tiny patch of blue sky that had me leaving the boat without a jacket on to take some pictures, though I would later regret it as I got soaked running back to the ferry on yet another ‘100 yard dash’

The big Kobelco CKE 1800 crane was obviously not working today!

The afternoon saw Raasay primary schools Proven 6kw wind turbine leaving on a trailer

with its mangled springs in the back of a pick up

and whilst it was a potentially serious incident that had the school closed the pupils sent home and the teachers quite rightly fearful. It was hardly the ‘50 foot turbine collapses into school yard, as blades come off’ incident as reported by the ‘Press and Journal’ http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1492247?UserKey= and subsequently leapt on by both ‘Wind farm action’ and ‘Windwatch’

Bananad!

Tuesday already and that would normally mean my last banana and me rushing around manically getting ready for my relief who would be the Loch Striven’s motorman for the next seven days. The seven yellow bent sticks that swing on a hook in the mess room gradually eaten away one every day that serve as my calendar for my week ‘before the mast’.

Today however I was greeted with TWO bananas !!!!!!!!!!, now two bananas is most definitely a Monday and I was quite certain it was not a Monday as Mondays are very busy and I seem to recall that it was not Sunday yesterday. For a moment I was a little confused, that was until I spotted the grin on one of our regular commuter’s face and realized that he’d switched my banana for a pair of his own

Actually I’m going to be really confused for the next three days as I’m still working on the Loch Striven until Friday due to a spate of sick motormen throughout the fleet only problem is I’ve no more bananas! I was going to go up to the shop during my lunch break but the weather was so bad I opted to stay in the nice warm mess room with some potato and leek soup instead. This fine winter fare being made with the stock left over from the ‘moules Sconsair’ on Sunday, I know muscles, and white wine should not go with spuds and leek but I’m telling you it was delicious.

The best of the weather

Whilst it was pretty miserable here it was far worse to the south with many of the Clyde sailings being disrupted, we sailed at 12:15 but for a while it looked like the late afternoon sailings would be cancelled.

Cancelled is just what these three clam divers should have done a few hours earlier

Seeing them huddled in their dry suits as they headed for the safety of Sconser in the tiny Castlebay registered Avocet made me glad that I’d chosen to swap my dry suit for a pair of overalls and a nice warm engine room This clam diving carry on is a great way to earn a living when the weather’s good!

The clam divers were not the only ones sheltering, the ‘well boat’ Ronja Commander also anchored up off the Moll.

We did continue sailing throughout the day though we did have the odd disruption to the timetable due to heavy seas on the exposed slip at Raasay.

The school children came home early from Portree High and a few workers wisely left Raasay early for fear of getting stranded and that was about it really.

The Ronja Commander was still at anchor as we headed home at 18:00 and I took another poor quality Lister video for all the other anoraks out there

 

This is the starboard HRW6 generator in the glow of the 24v emergency lighting until it bursts into life and is put on line by yours truly at 7:15 this morning