She’s back :-)

21:30 and I’ve just woke up, how I’m enjoying the peace and quiet of no TV sure the family and I have been doing stuff together. OK, it was only a wee chat then falling asleep on the couch with the ‘wee dug’ but it beats the cr4p out of River city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_City or CSI, NCIS or whatever other drivel usually comes out of Channel 5

Course the down, or possibly upside of this is that you don’t have to spend as much time reading my drivel Speaking of which I’ll fill you in briefly on the days doings that started with an unexpected ‘piglet encounter’. After the usual pot of coffee, quick plonk on here and daily ablutions I left the house a little earlier than usual to put fuel in the Land Rover. Stumbling about in the dark, on account of having no head torch I almost tripped over our one remaining piglet, a wee Tamworth gilt that we’re saving for the freezer.

This wee madam was left over from Bramble’s litter and is turning into a bit of a character. Millie as we’ve now named her was the runt of the litter and we thought she’d be a bit of a problem. It’s unfair to keep a single piglet and we were reluctant to put her out with the herd for fear of her, A, keeping Bramble lactating and not coming on heat and B, getting bullied by the much larger pigs.

Once we weaned her and the rest of the litter she was left on her own for a day and was so upset and frantic that we reluctantly put her out on the hill with the rest of the herd. I thought at first my worries about her preventing her mum from stopping producing milk and thus coming on heat had come to pass. The first thing she did when let out was dart under mum for a drink, however within a few days Bramble dried up and got served and the wee runty piglet settled in with the rest of the herd.

The tiny wee Millie charges about with the rest of them and gets her share of the grub and she’s just as happy to hang around with Rocky or Bracken as with her mum. I’m a little amazed by this, not just the way Millie has settled in but by the way the whole herd is interacting. There’s always a pecking order and the primary conflicts can be quite brutal but once they’ve established it and settled they’re all very civilized. Or at least they are when they’re out on the hill and fed over a large area, the same pigs fed in a field tend to hog the trough and take chunks out of each other.

Anyway, as they’ve all settled down we’ve taken to leaving the gate to the croft open out of pure laziness and of course the crappy weather. Seems to be that now they spend the day on the hill then wander back onto the croft and sleep in the barn. I had thought that they were sleeping in the old net shed then wandering around in the morning to get fed but once Millie then Bracken and Rocky turned up as I was fuelling up the land Rover I realized they’d been in there all night

Striven’s back

our own vessel the MV Loch Striven had left Tobermory just before 7:00am for the eight hour steam to Raasay.

 

http://www.shipais.com/showship.php?mmsi=232003376 so we spent the next few hours sprucing up the MV Loch Linnhe for the crew that would be taking her away.

 

 

 

Whilst we were busy with the ‘Scalex’ and power washer the ‘well boat’ Victoria lady was busy transferring fish from Loch Eynort or the Moll to the new cages at Braes.

 

 

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=1239259 

Vessel Identification

Name:
Viktoria Lady

IMO:
9369849

Flag:
Norway

MMSI:
259162000

Callsign:
LAFM

Former name(s):

- Aspoy (Until 2009 Aug 11)

Technical Data

Vessel type:
Fish Carrier

Gross tonnage:
1,186 tons

Summer DWT:
700 tons

Length:
53 m

Beam:
13 m

Draught:
5.2 m

Administrative Information

Home port:
Fosnavaag

Class society:
Det Norske Veritas

Build year:
2006

Builder*:
Havyard Solstrand
Tomrefjord, Norway

Owner:
Remoyvaering
Fosnavaag, Norway

Manager:
Remoyvaering
Fosnavaag, Norway

 

The mystery marag

Our own ship passed Eyre point on Raasay just after 14:30 (cheers George )

and arrived at the new harbour shortly afterwards.

 

 

Just as we on the Loch Linnhe were returning from Sconser

 

 

All went well, apart from me leaving my ‘red neck hillbilly’ jacket on the Linnhe and before long the relief boat headed south (after returning my jacket, thanks chaps)

 

 

Shortly afterwards she was caught on camera by ‘Oyster George’ as she headed to Mallaig ???

 

 

It was only long after the good ship Loch Linnhe had departed south that we noticed the ‘marag dubh’, two large black puddings nestling in the otherwise bare fridge

OK, it was more like one and three quarters than two but you know what I mean. Enquiries amongst the crew and passengers revealed nought, the biscuits, chocolates and booze (shh) could all be accounted for, but where had the black pudding come from ?????. Was it a Mull marag, an Oban offering or a Gourock ‘blood pud’ ???Whatever it is I’m looking forward to trying it, I only wish I hadn’t eaten all the scallops for breakfast

Overwhelmed

It’s been here since Wednesday and I’m afraid to open it, it arrived with a flash and bang on the table as if by magic.

OK, that’s a lie, it arrived by courier and I didn’t bring it home until last night but I’m overwhelmed and afraid to drink it.

At 21 years old and with a hand written label

it’s going to have to be a VERY special occasion Sue

Throttled :-(

Now this is my best excuse ever for not posting of late, I’ve been ‘throttled’ The recent storm force winds took out my satellite TV dish but left the larger broadband dish unscathed. Probably the loss of a television picture is akin to a death in the family in some households, not here, I hate the thing and seldom watch it. In all fairness had wifey and I not completely different tastes I probably would watch the odd documentary or bizarre film that gets aired in the early hours.

The upside of the loss of all the usual drivel that permeates through the house, for there is no getting away from the sound of it in our tiny dwelling. The upside is that we’ve all started talking to each other the downside is that they’ve been watching loads of cr4p on YouTube and iPlayer during the day and I’ve been ‘throttled’, for the first time in three and a half years as I’ve exceeded my 8Gb monthly limit with my ISP   http://www.avantiplc.com/. The upshot of which is that my download and upload speeds have been slashed to 128Kbps Far better than the 28Kbps that I started ‘blogging’ on four years ago but not very good for high definition pictures and impossible for video.

So instead of spending hours last night telling you all about my extremely dull day I did some ‘bonding’ with the family, OK half the time my son was buried in his new iPod but it was most enjoyable

An early finish

The first full day back at work was a disaster from the word go, lashing rain, howling winds and no Petzl head torch got me off to a wet start at 6:30am. A defunct heater on the Land Rover turned it into a cold start and the ‘all in one’ suit that I’d had to wear for most of the day kept the rain out and the sweat in

The 7:55am sailing was cancelled as the winds hovered around the force 9 level from the south west but as daylight arrived we managed next four crossings without drama

Well apart from the usual blasts that seem to howl down Loch Sligachan every time the ferry arrives

Squalls that had us leaving early, not through choice but because the engines would not keep us on the slipway

The 13:00 sailing became the 12:57 sailing and we headed for the safety of our beautiful new harbour.

 

Had we still been operating from Suisnish we’d not have sailed the whole day, as it was we managed to keep going until lunchtime, when most other sailings up and down the west coast had been cancelled.

I even managed to get a little painting done before we called it a day.

Extra crew

Even though yesterdays maximum wind speed was only 65mph compared to the violent storm  75mph+ of Boxing day it was far worse a day. The south, south west wind has us sheltered somewhat by the mass of Raasay, the westerly and north westerly offer us no such protection and we receive its full wrath. It blasts straight over the Storr, screams across the Sound of Raasay, over Loch Arnish and hits us square on the front door Of course the good thing is it hits the wind turbine first

and our Proven 2.5Kw has been belting out 2.4Kw for days now. Perhaps a new set of their carbon fibre blades would improve things but this will be its 6th winter with nothing other than routine maintenance so I can hardly complain.

As I said a little family time kept me off here, an early night had me up today fresh and ready for action   Well that and the fact that I’d managed to get home a little early

The ‘wee dug’ had obviously sensed my enthusiasm for the day and was not letting me out of the house without her. In truth she was probably missing the company of all the dogs that had invaded the house over Christmas so I decided to take her to work.

Well, not so much to work because she hates the boat, does not have the correct paperwork, medical and has not been ‘inducted’ on the Loch Linnhe It was more a case of taking her down to visit Jessie Nicolson at School Park. The ‘wee dug’ loves Jessie (as we all do) and she’d not seen her since before Christmas, so after a few hours of keeping my ‘red neck’ hillbilly jacket warm (reluctantly) I deposited her there

Molly was not the only extra crew member that we had

and we made good use of him Not a patch on the Loch Striven’s bilges but far cleaner now than they were

 

 

We fuelled up at 12:30 with 3500lts of ‘MGO’ marine gas oil before getting stuck into finishing the monthly ‘PM’ or planned maintenance. This amounted to checking all of the smoke, heat  and flame detectors on board and checking  all the bilge pumps on one of the seven spaces.

Just like her sister the Loch Striven the Loch Linnhe has two large electric pumps and one diesel that can be switched between fire and bilge pumping duties. Part of the monthly checks is to make sure that each pump can be operated in each mode on one space.

 

This is the Lister LV1 pump that is in the space that we filled with fresh water, number 3 void, just forward of the aft peak.

This is the pump that is normally set up for bilge pumping

and this the one for fire fighting.

A little more painting

and some spectacular views of the Cuilins just about finished the day off at work.

 

And with Orion  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28constellation%29 to greet me as I arrived home at 19:30

 

 

OK, one of his feet was missing but there was a hill in the way