Sorry for the lack of posts for the last few days. After a couple of days in what felt like isolation on Rona we decided to take a couple of days out spending a bit of time on land. On Sunday we had a walk from Portree and waked out part of the way out on the headland and then climbing the steep hill to the top before taking a far more gentle path back to Portree. We had noticed two of the tourist trip boats hanging around the opposite headland. I saw what I initially thought was a dolphin breaking the surface of the water. I only saw it the once, but then it clicked we were probably a mile or more away and a dolphin would have barely been noticeable. It must have been a Minke Whale.
On Monday we decided to try and see more of the Isle of Skye. We caught a bus that did a circular trip of the North part of the Island. One of the earlier stops was at The old man of Storr, an iconic rock pinnacle. We got off the bus with most of the other passengers. The bus driver had already advised us that the next bus would be along in about 2hours, but advised us to download the bus timetable. We set off on our climb to see the Old Man. Having got to the view point with views of the amazing rock formation and also out over the sound with views of Rona, Raasay and the hydroelectric dam. We looked at the bus time table and came to the conclusion that the next bus to finish our circular tour would be in bout 30-40 minutes. The following bus would be in about another 3 hours. We decided we had conquered a large part of the climb and would head back down and see the rest of the Island. The bus didn’t turn up when we expected. About 1 1/2 hour later a bus came in the other direction back the way we came from Portree. We had read the timetable wrongly and we were waiting for a bus that only ran on a Friday during the school term. With no idea what time the next bus would arrive we got on the return bus and only saw The Old Mn of Storr from the view point and only saw part of the Northern part of Skye.
When I got back to the boat a White tailed eagle was soaring above being mobbed by seagulls. I tried to get a picture. I did catch it but just two pretty poor shots heavily cropped to be able to see the eagle.
We set off Tuesday morning for Gairloch. Hoping that maybe the headland may have been a regular haunt of the Minke Whale, we made a beline for it and were disappointed. However, little further on I was aware of a splash and as I looked a Minke Whale surfaced close to the boat and disappeared below the waves before I could grab a camera.
On quite a few occasions we have seen Puffins on the water, but they always seem to dive before there’s a chance to get a picture. Today I managed to get a shot, only on the phone, but once cropped down I have a grainy picture of a pair of Puffins.
We continued on to Gairloch and picked up moorings at Badachro, a very sheltered picturesque anchorage.
See you soon David…
We came up to Ullapool today as tomorrow was looking a bit dodgy. Safe journey.