Not really, but it is the first day of the winter timetable, actually the first day was Sunday but as the sailing times are the same year round for the Sabbath you only notice it as of today. Not that it felt like winter right enough, in fact it was positively summery with a high of over 14 degrees. The stiff south easterly had come all the away from southern Europe losing little of its Mediterranean heat during its brief crossing of the southern North Sea. It was in short a lovely day, no sunshine but sharp colours, dry air and mild temperatures.
Not much change from the summer really, the 11:30 from Sconser is now the 11:25, there’s one less ferry in the afternoon and the last sailing from Sconser is now at 18:00 
Most important though, the Saturday late sailing is now by request so you must phone Uig before 12:00 on Saturday to book it.
There was no posting last night for a couple of reasons, first Molly and I had to take some baggage over to the old Torran Schoolhouse for the new arrivals http://www.uniquescotland.com/raasayschool/index.html . Secondly we had a friend round for dinner who kept us entertained with stories of her youth in Arnish. It’s kind of strange having someone point to various bits of your house and describe in detail each item of furniture that resided in each corner sixty years and more ago.
The ‘Minister’s bed’ here,
though the minister would probably only ever use it every fortnight or so and I’m sure it would have not lain empty when the revered man was not in residence
The window is a recent addition, around twenty five years ago just before I arrived and it must have been a gloomy room then, lit as it would have been with candles or Tilley lamps.
Where our cooker now resides was a huge chest of drawers,
our stove replacing the huge open fire with its great sandstone lintel, no doubt hauled from Fladda or at least the Fraoch Eilean (heather isle) off the northern tip of Loch Arnish. Our living room was at that time the kitchen with a cast iron ‘Esse’ in the hearth, that I can vouch for as I found its remains outside many years ago. It really makes you wonder how they ever got all this stuff here before the road. I suppose much of it came in by sea but even so it’s a long way from the shore with a cooker, bed or chest of drawers on your back
Monday
Well I was actually up about an hour earlier than I need have been, I even set off for work early but got distracted by yet another sod pushed into the hydro turbine inlet by the pigs, I’m sure they do it deliberately
Dun Caan looked lovely as we left Raasay for Sconser to pick up what was a surprisingly little amount of traffic, a theme which continued throughout the day. In fact we’d a couple of empty, or near empty runs 
The Portree boat Green Isle III was busy fishing for velvet crab,
obviously there are always more of them directly under the ferry
The Green Isle was not the only vessel out today,
the UK Border Agency’s Valiant headed north during the late afternoon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKBA_42m_Customs_Cutter according to the blurb it’s not armed but that looks like a gun on the front to me
Class and type:
Damen Stan Patrol 4207[1]
Displacement:
238 GRT
Length:
42.08 m (138.1 ft)[1]
Beam:
7.11 m (23.3 ft)[1]
Draught:
2.52 m (8.3 ft)[1]
Installed power:
4,176 kW (5,600 hp)
Propulsion:
- Two Caterpillar 3516B DI-TA Elec
- Two 3.5:1 reduction gearboxes
- Two 4-blade controllable pitch propellers
- One Promac bow thruster
- Two 106kWA generator sets
Speed:
26 knots (48 km/h)
Range:
1,750 nmi (3,240 km) at 12kn
Endurance:
14 days
Boats and landing
craft carried:
- One 7m RIB (32 kn)
- One 3.8m Rescue Boat
Complement:
12
Armament:
Nil
4:00am
Well actually it’s 5:10 just now and I’ve been up for an hour, probably the gale of south east wind hammering the roof of the house had something to do with it. No doubt a hangover from my fishing days when every gale meant a restless night unless the boat was tucked behind a pier, even so I seldom had unbroken sleep during storms. If it wasn’t the thought of my boat filling with water it was the fear of not getting my catch landed, especially if it was velvet crab. The scallops would keep an extra week or two and it just meant a wee while longer to wait for the cheque, another week in the ‘keeps’ for the velvets would mean high mortality A waste of a life for the crabs and a tragedy on the wallet
So much for the 12 to 15mph winds !!!
sailings from the old pier at Suisnish would be unlikely this morning
Anyway it’s almost 5:30 now so I’ll just do some much hated paperwork before leaving for the last day of the ‘working week’.
Raasay: Landlords and people
But before I go I’ll just leave you with this excellent little book written by John Nicolson of Raasay that I picked up on Skye recently http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Raasay.html?id=2TP_ZwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y Can’t seem to find it through the usual net retailers but they do have copies at http://www.aros.co.uk/ in Portree. An excellent little read crammed full of short stories and a condensed history of the clearance of Raasay to make way for sheep. There are also some excellent photographs of Raasay and one or two of the north end.
