The ‘fifth man’ :-o

What a pleasure it was to wake up at a sensible time or at least nearer to the right time for going to work. The 5:00am starts of late just became 6:00am ones, and for that I’m grateful, still a little early for a Sunday right enough but it gave me chance to get a few things done on the way to work.

Rather than taking the quad I walked the half mile or so in my oilskins in the pishing rain!! No, I’m not a sadist, I just had time to kill, felt like I needed the exercise and it was perfect weather for clearing verges.

    

Just a few minutes with a shovel can make a huge difference to the state of the track and helps both your feet and the shopping dry.

After dealing with the chooks up at ‘Sonas’ I pottered down the road in the ‘Old Girl’ and another shovel.

 

The ‘Wilkinson Sword Border Spade’ has to be the most useless spade I have ever come across. It’s unique ‘shock absorber’ handle makes it feel like a jelly every time you thrust it into the ground it bends. Talk about a useless gimmick, luckily the soft verges didn’t prove too taxing and I managed to empty a few ‘lakes’ on the way to work.

 

 

 

Sure it’s the Highland Council’s responsibility but I find it more hassle complaining to them than actually doing the job.

Of course, as is usual for a Sunday, I was late, I’m always late on Sunday

Dunkan the dummy

Arriving at work just after 9:00am to find the rest of the crew there before me I then set about the usual pre start checks prior to sailing at 10:00. A busy boat outbound and a quiet one back to Raasay was followed by the usual ‘big breakfast’ a ‘Safety Meeting’ and then a MOB (man overboard) exercise. It also gave use chance to use Dunkan

 

for the first time  

Poor Dunkan fell overboard and had to be rescued.

 

Luckily the Hallaig’s crew were quick off the mark

 

and Dunkan was soon rescued.

Once back on board we hosed him down and locked him in cupboard until next week

As well as rescuing Dunkan we put a fire out on the car deck using the 30kW ‘Drencher pump’,

you don’t want to be on the car deck when this baby starts up

Home in daylight

and it’s still not dark two hours later.

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The ‘fifth man’ :-o

What a pleasure it was to wake up at a sensible time or at least nearer to the right time for going to work. The 5:00am starts of late just became 6:00am ones, and for that I’m grateful, still a little early for a Sunday right enough but it gave me chance to get a few things done on the way to work.

Rather than taking the quad I walked the half mile or so in my oilskins in the pishing rain!! No, I’m not a sadist, I just had time to kill, felt like I needed the exercise and it was perfect weather for clearing verges.

    

Just a few minutes with a shovel can make a huge difference to the state of the track and helps both your feet and the shopping dry.

After dealing with the chooks up at ‘Sonas’ I pottered down the road in the ‘Old Girl’ and another shovel.

 

The ‘Wilkinson Sword Border Spade’ has to be the most useless spade I have ever come across. It’s unique ‘shock absorber’ handle makes it feel like a jelly every time you thrust it into the ground it bends. Talk about a useless gimmick, luckily the soft verges didn’t prove too taxing and I managed to empty a few ‘lakes’ on the way to work.

 

 

 

Sure it’s the Highland Council’s responsibility but I find it more hassle complaining to them than actually doing the job.

Of course, as is usual for a Sunday, I was late, I’m always late on Sunday

Dunkan the dummy

Arriving at work just after 9:00am to find the rest of the crew there before me I then set about the usual pre start checks prior to sailing at 10:00. A busy boat outbound and a quiet one back to Raasay was followed by the usual ‘big breakfast’ a ‘Safety Meeting’ and then a MOB (man overboard) exercise. It also gave use chance to use Dunkan

 

for the first time  

Poor Dunkan fell overboard and had to be rescued.

 

Luckily the Hallaig’s crew were quick off the mark

 

and Dunkan was soon rescued.

Once back on board we hosed him down and locked him in cupboard until next week

As well as rescuing Dunkan we put a fire out on the car deck using the 30kW ‘Drencher pump’,

you don’t want to be on the car deck when this baby starts up

Home in daylight

and it’s still not dark two hours later.