Back online :-)

Woo Hoo, that’s me back ‘online’ after more than two months without the Internet    Many, many thanks to Sean and Ali of Applenet https://www.facebook.com/AppleNet-580886885360852/ who turned up here around 11:00 and sorted us out.

So, where was I since I spoke (or was it ranted) last, a couple of weeks at least I guess and one of those was spent working with my ‘back to back’ on the other shift. Your truly was called in at the last moment to cover one of the ‘seaman pursers’ who was doing a radar course. With a gazillion and one things to do and Belladrum http://www.tartanheartfestival.co.uk/ on the horizon the last thing I wanted was a few days ‘call back’ but the extra spending money will come in handy right enough.

So, with my hen like memory I’ll trawl through my pictures and see what I’ve done.

This will be giving  you an idea why were insane enough to build a house here in the first place, sure we’ve no landline, an iffy phone signal and no backup for the Internet, but it does have its compensations. Sunsets like this being one of them

and morning visitors like this another.

The commute aint bad either,

a couple of velvet covered young stags at Tarbert.

   

The ‘Department bull’ and his harem at Glam one fine morning with a few sheep awaiting shearing.

The drive home last Saturday night with the sun going down over Portree bay.

Early morning view of Hallaig and Glamaig.

Churchton bay filling up with yachts one fine evening.

The MV Proud Seahorse  https://www.hebridescruises.co.uk/our-vessels/ another visitor, though this time on a pretty miserable day.

 

The ‘superyacht’ Amaryllis  https://www.yachtcharterfleet.com/luxury-charter-yacht-25046/amaryllis.htm a mere £690K per week to charter

One of the many rainbows

Home at last, or at least very nearly. This will be ‘Calum’s road’ just after Tarbert on the way north, probably me listening to Front Row on Radio 4.

They just keep getting bigger

With a Range Rover parked in my barn you’ll forgive my indulgence in this beauty,

 

a ‘mint’ Rover P5 3.5V8 from Holland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_P5 . Now, when ‘I was a lad’ this was a huge car, probably the largest you could buy outside some ‘yank tank’ or a Rolls Royce. Now it’s the same size as a fiesta!!!!!!

People are getting fatter, cars are getting bigger but supermarket car parking spaces are getting smaller  

More recently

So that’s it, I finally finished worked a few days late and managed to do some wandering around the hills of Arnish,

   

the ‘wee dug’ and I looking for a 4g phone signal. EE recently put a mast up at Skriag on Skye and I was thinking that this would be an excellent ‘back up’ if the ‘AppleNet’ system went down again. Methinks it would be feasible using something like this  https://www.amazon.co.uk/HUAWEI-External-Periodic-antenna-highest/dp/B00D1VXZ3E with a suitable router. Many thanks to Mostie for that ‘nugget’ Cheers Graham methinks you have put me on the right track for a suitable back up.

I reckon one of those Yagi antennas on the wind turbine mast on the right would give me a good reception from the Skriag transmitter

Getting ready for Bella

So, once I finally finished working I got stuck into getting the ‘Old Girl’ ready for Bella.

   

First task being a full service then some work on the Warn 9500 winch. A new motor and winch wire being the order of the day.

Three times is enough :-(

Well, it’s been a pure peach of a week, or at least the bits I remember. That’s the trouble here on the West Coast where the weather is often wet and windy, two good days in a row and you forget at about the two weeks of gales and rain. Or worse still the humid calm, damp midge infested morning and evenings that are so common in July and August. Truth is this summer seems to have been relatively ‘midge free’ and apart from a grim June has been ‘peachy so far.

The last couple of days have been cracking, though yesterday didn’t get off the best of starts,

  

the Storr in sharp contrast to Wednesday was covered in mist, there was no sign of Harris or Lewis to the north west and Holm Island didn’t look very inviting.

  

A young velvet covered stag was wandering around at Glam and the Raasay Distillery was looking very quiet. Mind you it wasn’t much after 6:00am as I was heading down early to use the free CalMac internet. My recent correspondences with Applenet, the Arnish ISP proving very disappointing, with no prospect of broadband this month by the sound of it. To say it’s inconvenient is something of an understatement and probably explains in a small part why I’m so crabbit at the moment. Well it’s either that or the Tramadol again, I’ve been taking that for three days, which doesn’t help.

Anyway, the day improved vastly,

assisted no doubt by the scrambled egg and hot smoked salmon on toast.

The small shower that preceded the sunshine making a lovely rainbow at Sconser.

  

The Eda Frandsen and Donna Marie both ‘earning their crust’ in the Raasay Narrows, Eda at the boat chartering and Donna at the clams.

Once the morning shower had dried off it was back to the painting with me old shipmate Finlay.

The rest of the day being spent marshalling cars on a busy deck, or just plain dodging them if the truth be known. So, by the time I got home after 20:00, having been away a good 14 hours and more I was pure whacked. By 20:30 I was in my PJs with my ‘feet up in front of the fire’, OK, we don’t actually have a fire but you get the gist. In short, I am ‘tired and shagged out after a long squawk’ as they say. An hour later, two thirds the way through a pish film that I’m actually quite enjoying the ‘wee dug’ starts barking her head off. This she does at deer, cats, rabbits, pigs and people, though by 21:30 I’m not thinking it will be the latter.

A sign is the only answer and don’t read on if you’re easily offended

How wrong was I, it turned out to be a Spanish couple  who had driven off the Torran path. I was feckin’ raging and gave them both barrels, It’s a friggin footpath not a road, are you stupid? OK, it may seem a little harsh but this will be the third time in less than twelve months that I’ve dragged some clown back up this path.

  

And it’s not just the three halfwits that I’ve pulled out, my mate John William, AKA Bradain pulled a camper van out of here earlier this year, a big one!!!! Not only that but that barmpot female wrecked the track in her abortive efforts to extricate herself.

The latest pair of clowns in the obligatory ‘17 plate’ hire car had actually managed to get further than all the eejits I’ve ever rescued bar BT, yes BT even got a tractor bogged down here. No wonder this muppet and the others got stuck. So I arrived there to the smell of burning clutch, hitched up my winch and pulled him out. I didn’t have the heart to charge him despite being severely pi55ed off at them, the car was damaged, the clutch burnt and I guessed they’d be paying dearly for the dents on the hire car. The ‘end of the road’, Raasay and that crabbit crofter will be etched in their memory forever, methinks they’ll no be so stupid again.

However, that’s it, I’m sick of these clowns, between the three here and the three at Brochel this last year I’ll be taking ‘money up front’ from now on

Needs a bit of work and punctuation but you get the gist

Twenty eight years I’ve lived here at the ‘end of the road’ and in twenty six of them all I’ve rescued has been one tractor and about a couple of dozen kayakers. Sure there have been a few people who cycled up here then gave up, one or two that got lost on the way to the bothy and the odd broken down car but you expect that.  It’s just the last couple of years that has seen this explosion of numpties that are unable to drive or walk and leave their sh1te in black bags at the side of the road for ‘The Bin Bag Fairy’. Having said that, the ‘Bin Bag Fairy’ worshippers have been conspicuous by their absence so far this year, though it is ‘early days’. The only carp I’ve found so far this year is the remains of several ‘Happy Meals’. I mean ‘what the feck’ is that all about? some Neanderthals who prefer sugar and E numbers to real food have bought a large bag of ‘Big Mac’s’ etc and carried them 100 miles from the nearest ‘Golden Arches’ to consume and dump them at the end of Calum’s Road. I mean, if you drove the car like you stole it all the way from Inverness or Fort William to Sconser,  then just happened to drive straight on a ferry, then drive straight up to the ‘end of the road’. If you did all that and then ate your happy meal straight away then it would be at least four hours old. Jeez, I thought I had a strong stomach. Of course the ignorant bar stewards could have consumed them anywhere on the 210 mile trip, driven past a gazillion bins and chose to dump them at Arnish as some kind of offering to the ‘Bin Bag Fairy’ but I doubt it.

  Friday

This morning I had a ‘lie in’ until 6:00am before heading down the road 25 minutes later,

the sun was blazing and Dun Caan was busy soaking it up on her eastern slopes.

  

A golden eagle flew across directly in front of the Land Rover at Glam before landing nearby to gaze over to Portree.

That’s it on the right.

Acta Marine’s Sara Maatje VIII just leaving the berth at 7:00AM

 

and back again 12 hours later with Ferguson’s Harvest Anne.