Westering home

Well, I’m not, but I will be tomorrow, it’s 19:00 on Thursday and I guess we’re about half way from Kennacraig to Port Ellen on Islay. A place that I visited often in the late seventies and early eighties and I’ve never really been back since, well apart from a few hours in December some ten years ago. That would have been my first ‘dry docking’ on the Loch Striven in 2002, when we left Raasay and took three days to get to the Clyde due to the weather. Our skipper a seasoned old sea dog put in there for shelter and we tied up for six hours awaiting a favourable wind and tide to take us around ‘The Mull’. Sure enough just as forecast the wind eased and we made the dash around Kintyre into Cambeltown  without spilling any tea, or anything else for that matter. However it was dark, wet, wild and windy as we sheltered in the tiny harbour at Port Askaig and my visit ashore was confined to ‘making fast’ and ‘letting go’.

 

Westering home and a song in the air
Light in the eye and its good by to care
Laughter o love and a welcoming there
Isle of my heart my own land
Tell me a tale of the Orient gay
Tell me of riches that come from Cathay
Ah but it’s grand to be waken at day
And find oneself nearer to Islay
And it’s westering home with a song in the air
Light of me eye and it’s goodbye to care
Laughter and love are a welcoming there
Pride of my heart my own love
Where are the folks like the folks of the west
Canty and couthy and kindly, our best
There I would hie me and there I would rest
At home with my own folks in Islay
And it’s westering home with a song in the air
Light of me eye and it’s goodbye to care
Laughter and love are a welcoming there
Pride of my heart my own love
Now I’m at home and at home I do lay
Dreaming of riches that come from Cathay
I’ll hop a good ship and be on my way
And bring back my fortune to Islay
And it’s westering home with a song in the air
Light of me eye and it’s goodbye to care
Laughter and love are a welcoming there
Pride of my heart my own love

Sunday

Well that went severely ‘pear shaped’  peeps, it’s now Sunday and I’ve ‘westered home’ to Raasay, that little jewel of the Hebrides that is my home. Actually it was more of ‘northing’ but anyway I’m home, though not for long, I’ve another friggin 200 mile drive down to Kennacraig tomorrow

I know, I know, it’s a week since I posted, but the internet is pants on the Islay route and ‘yours truly’ has been a little ‘down in the dumps’ having spent ten months of his life mainly away from home My son is on holiday and I see precious little of him at the best of times as he stays in a hostel during the week. The weather is great and I’m stuck in the friggin engine room of a ship 200 miles from home and my cabin doesn’t even have a window OK, I know that I’m really lucky because most of the people that I’ve come into contact with since Easter have been paying to visit these beautiful places and I’m getting paid for working in them So, I’m not expecting any sympathy but that’s why you’ve heard precious little from the ‘end of the road’ of late. Well that and I’m ‘pi55ed off’ with folk telling wifey how marvellous the blog is, the ‘hen lady’ don’t read the thing, hates me writing it and really, really hates people talking to here about it, so if you want me to carry on writing it then stop hassling her

Sunday

Not this one, last one, the 21st that is,

 

that got off to a very ‘shaky start’ with a starter motor failure on my mates Yamaha ‘Big Bear’ 350 quad. Typically it was just as he was about to arrive after a long absence and I had to fix it PDQ. It wasn’t too difficult to remove, just a matter of seat, fuel tank, starter lead then two mounting bolts. Though just to make life simpler I hoovered   all the mud and carp out of the way with a vacuum cleaner first, and then again once the motor was removed.

Overhauling a Yamaha quad starter motor

Once the little ‘Nippondenso’ unit was off I took it to the bench and stripped it down, taking care to mark all the bits first.

   

As soon as I got the unit apart it was obvious that one of the brushes was worn out and severe arcing was going on with resultant burning of the commutator. What was also clearly apparent was its similarity to my own Honda TRX 350 quads starter motor brushes.

 

The Honda TRX 350 quad is quite heavy on starter brushes so I always keep a spare set of their part number 31206-MN4-008 for my own trusty steed. Well would you believe it, the Yamaha uses the exact same brushes and I soon had it sorted. Not only that, but I now discover you can get the genuine ones on eBay for less than £30

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p3984.m570.l1313.TR1.TRC0.A0.Xhonda+350+quad+starter+brushes&_nkw=honda+350+quad+starter+brushes&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Once that was sorted I seem to remember helping wifey’s  mum with the poorly hen,

 

a ‘blackrock’ with a broken leg that needed antibiotics. This poor thing had to be separated from the flock once she’d been ‘repaired’ by the vet  http://www.yell.com/biz/rhona-campbell-portree-6216117/ . Immediately after her return from having a splint she’d been set on by the other hens so we moved her to a large ruin behind the house.

Next task was back up to the water tank to fit the new lid prior to heading off to catch the last ferry.

It was a bonny bonny day but I had to join the MV Hebrides for one last day on account of Friday’s fog.

The 16:00 ferry from Raasay giving me plenty of time to get to Uig for her arrival at around 17:40

Skilfully manoeuvred alongside by the first mate

 

from the starboard bridge wing I joined her for my last night aboard.

 

A fine night that involved a trip to Lochmaddy and back prior to a night in Uig then a journey across the Minch in thick fog on Monday.

An added bonus

Leaving the good ship Hebrides at Uig on Monday morning in brilliant sunshine I had the pleasure of a couple of hours to kill on the way south to Kennacraig to join CalMac’s newest vessel, Finlaggan.

That I did with my parents and their dogs on the mainland

My home for the next five weeks arriving bang on time at Kennacraig courtesy of another Raasay man

This time via the port bridge wing

 

As it was Monday night the ship bunkered with HFO and I went to bed!!!

 

The following night was spent at Port Ellen on Islay,

 

where I set foot for the first time in thirty years.

The rest of the week

After that it becomes a bit of a blur but here’s Port Askaig

her lifeboat

and the Jura ferry

which I have to say was very skilfully handled.

 

 

The ‘Paps of Jura’

 

looked awesome as I assisted the second engineer in repairing the lift but it’s 22:30 now on Sunday evening and I’m ready for bed

Tattie Bogle

However, just before I go I’ll leave you with the ‘highs and lows’ of a weekend at home.

 

Saturday had us ‘fog bound’ on Raasay with five piglets until 12:40

 

whereupon we headed towards ‘tattie bogal’ http://www.tattiebogal.org/ territory with five piglets.

 

 

 

Worse than the ‘bin bag fairy’

The weekend at home has been marvellous but the ‘idiot of the month’ award this time does not go to a kayaker or worshiper of the ‘bin bag fairy’ but to a bunch of clowns with large aerials

 

You just have to laugh at this collection of halfwits and their parking,

you couldn’t make it up really

Yes that really is some plank parked in the middle of the road with a generator at the side of his ‘hippy bus’ You have to laugh really or you’d cry, only twenty four hours earlier my mate had been up here with a large truck and on Wednesday the bin lorry is due. Not a prayer that any of them or the coal lorry would get past this idiot. I mean they could even have put the generator and coil of rope behind the truck but they couldn’t be ar5sed I did stop on my way passed and tell them that it ‘was an insane place to park’ but the reply I got was “we’ll be away before Wednesday”  

MV Hallaig

All that aside, the reason why I’m doing all this training, our very own MV Hallaig, the worlds first sea going RoRo hybrid ferry spent seven days in dry dock last week.

It was just routine stuff, a little damage suffered alongside at Ferguson’s plus a ‘bum scrape’ due to her seven months in the water but it means that she’s a step closer to arriving here.

 

According to the BBC Gaelic news we may see her before the end of August

I just can’t wait to get aboard her!!!

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Not so far to the Raasay ferry :-)

Well, the heat has arrived here, not sure what it was on Raasay for my weather station died some months ago and I’ve never got around to replacing it but David at http://www.isleofskyeweather.org.uk/24elgol/

recorded 25 degrees plus at 14:00 so I guess we weren’t far behind. It certainly felt hot, too hot in fact with all the pigs spending the day inside their arks or under the shade of a tree. Our water supply seems to have dried up for the first time this year, which is unusual as May are June are normally the time for rationing. Not that I think it’ll come to that for we have 5000lts of storage and rain is forecast for Wednesday .

Another 12 months

Anyway, I left you in a layby somewhere on the A87 north of ‘Slig’ on Friday, just as my day was ‘going to 5h1t’, though that would hardly have seemed the case to any casual observer. Sat in the sunshine looking over the Cuillins  on a Friday afternoon hardly seems stressful or strenuous but that is not where I should have been. I should at that time of day been tucking into my lunch on the MV Hebrides but banks of fog put paid to that and I couldn’t join in the afternoon as the ‘Old Girl’ was booked in for MOT at http://www.smorrison.co.uk/ . As is usual at this time of year I get in a ‘right state’ whenever the MOT is due, more so this year because eleven months of ‘training’ five days a week, much of it away from home have meant that the Land Rover’s usual TLC has not been a priority.

Fortunately one good thing about spending so much time walking in South Shields meant that the Old Girl had only covered 6000 miles since the last test and ‘flew through’. That was of course after I’d spent hours messing about with the dash warning lights, handbrake, number plate light and oil leaks.

Stunned that my twenty seven year old baby had passed her thirteenth MOT in a row I headed home via the Co op with a case of cider to celebrate

 

Getting as far as this layby just before Sconser when I realized that I hadn’t got enough fuel, actually I had plenty but had forgotten that I’d be leaving the Landy with wifey. Raasay has many facilities but fuel and alcohol are in short supply

 

Upon my return from Portree filling station I spotted some stranded sheep at the head of Loch Sligachan

 

I just wonder if the grass tastes better when the tide is in, for you never see them grazing here at low water!!!!

Armed with my MOT certificate and a full tank of diesel I headed north on what must have been the warmest day of the year here by far. This being a stretch of road past Bealach Ruadh where the road crosses from west to east, always good for spotting eagles. It has a Gaelic name that is something to do with ‘the men of Oscaig’ or is it rallying to the princes call, whatever it is, it has some unique (to Raasay) grasses growing in it.

Saturday

Not actually getting home until 18:30, having to unload the Land Rover and then go out with my son and shoot some pigeons not a great deal else got done and an early night was had by all. All that is but the teenager of the house whom I heard creeping upstairs at around 3:00am!!!! Still, that didn’t stop me dragging him out of bed at 8:30 to take the quad and trailer over to Torran to ‘ship out’ some American’s from http://www.uniquescotland.com/raasayschool/index.html the ‘Old Schoolhouse’ That he did with a smile and got well tipped too, one thing about the Americans, they expect good service and are happy to reward it. We seem to put up with carp, get ripped off, say nothing and fail to tip when we should.

Once they were away the pair of us went back, I dealt with their ‘bin bags’ and my son got on with cutting the grass.

This is the old ‘Mission House’ just by the schoolhouse at Torran,

the ‘hipped roof’ end being the church bit and the part with two chimneys the house. Obviously the congregation were kept warm by their faith whilst the minister and his servants needed a fire  

Leaving the Dude to tackle the rushes, grass, burdock, thistles and bracken I went back home and headed up to the water storage tanks for the new house.

This being the main 3600lt tank some 30m higher and 200m away from the new house overlooking Loch Arnish. The tank is fed from a 1000lt settling tank which in turn is fed from a ‘secret well’,

I say ‘secret’ because no one seems to know anything about it and I came across it whilst searching for water some years ago. Lined with stones it’s obviously been used at one time and has never run dry even when my own supply has failed.

  

Anyway, that well feeds this grey fibre glass tank which I spent all morning emptying and cleaning out with bleach, once that is full it flows into the larger black one below. The plan being to construct a ‘slow sand filter ’http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_sand_filter in this one but first I had to make a lid to keep out leaves, debris and creatures.

The lid needed to be secure, waterproof, windproof and bug proof, fortunately I had just the thing

Though I have to say that the time that the Dude and I spent making this lid was of far more value than £12 for a sheet of OSB

 

Mind you it was a good deal heavier and stronger than a sheet of OSB, taking much effort, sweating and cursing to get it up the hill

 

and on to the tank.

Though I have to say that I’m well pleased with the result, all I have to do now is carry a ton of sand and pebbles up there

And whilst we’re on the subject of ferries and ferry traffic,

the new hybrid Raasay ferry MV Hallaig went to dry dock on Thursday under her own steam  http://www.cmassets.co.uk/en/our-work/projects/current-projects/hybrid-ferries-project.html . Our new ferry being one step closer to arriving here after heading to the Garvel dry dock http://www.forth-group.co.uk/gc.html to have her ‘bum scraped’