Off to the Norther Hebrides

The sun continues to shine! Grab the opportunity of flat water to send some mug up the mast to do a little job, I kept my feet firmly on the deck whilst Mike braved the heights!

These are the evening we are getting- sunset over Skye

The very light winds meant a motor out to the Northern Hebrides and the southern island of Harris (of  tweed fame). Bikes ashore we did a tour of Harris.
When the sun is out this place is hard to beat; it really could have been the Caribbean (as long as you didn't put your toe in the water!)






If you want to move your sheep around, this is how you do it in the Scottish Isles! And this is the starting place for Harris tweed.







I can't quite get my head around this one. The only special thing about Harris tweed seems to be that it has to be woven on a manually driven loom in the Hebrides with no more than 5 looms per dwelling thus keeping it very much a cottage industry and the manual nature of the weaving is said to keep the quality at its finest. It is still done like this (the loom is driven by two pedals)! How they compete I do not know. The wool can come from anywhere and the garment made anywhere, often in the Far East.









A little further up the coast it was Shanks's pony for a trip into some rather grizzly hills, just to remind us that we are still in Scotland, superlatives not required for that day, only a boot dryer!



Then on towards Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. On the way we stopped at the Shiant Islands, a spectacular small group of island in the North Minch (the channel between the Hebrides and the mainland). I wasn't feeling well so Mike went ashore on his own; he got more adventure than he bargained on!
We anchored about 400 yards down wind of the beach in a strong breeze and Mike set out to row ashore. I watched him go to make sure he was okay rowing into the strong wind; satisfied he was making good progress I went below and got my head down. Within moments of me going below Mikes paddle broke. He was 100 yards from the beach with a rocky windward shore to his  left; if unable to get to shore his next stop downwind would have been the Scottish mainland! Happily he did manage to get ashore but then had no way of alerting me to his plight; if he set off down wind back to the boat and missed, well, Scotish mainland for him - he sat tight!]




I woke up an hour later, saw Mike on the beach, waved, and to his frustration disappeared down below before he managed to indicate his troubles; he sat back down on the beach to wait. Rather puzzled why he was still sat on the beach some time later I once again stuck my head out and waved. Mike jumped up and waved his 1 1/2 paddles at me - ah, now I could see the problem! A bit of sign language organised the rescue. I was to pull up the anchor, Mike would set off down wind with his single usable paddle and I would pick him up where ever he got to. He was relieved to be back on board!




From Stornoway we did a 45 mile bike ride across Lewis; we bit off rather more than we could chew as we ran into some serious headwinds on the far side of the island. Still, we saw an ancient stone circle, Lewis's answer to Stonehenge and an interesting preserved Crofters village, the houses in which were only abandoned in 1970.

Yesterday we had a cracking sail back to the mainland to be met by this rather strange mountain which we nicknamed the Gherkin, its 3000' tall!








Mike produced a fine culinary delight of Loch Inver tart poulet for dinner.

I am laid pretty low at the moment with whatever got me a couple of days ago coming back with a vengeance. Sadly half of Mikes Loch Inver tarte poulet went back into the sea during the night! Hopefully its just a one day wonder.

Next we are bound for Cape Wrath and the Orkney Islands. Hopefully the cape will keep its wrath to itself!