Navigating the Sound

After nearly a week being knocked about by the wind, the village woke to a dead-calm sea and a golden morning, with the sun staying out until well into the afternoon. The air is wonderfully clear after its scrubbing, so the cliffs of Mull seem an arms-length away.

This ship came up the Sound shortly before eight this morning: she's pictured passing Tobermory Lighthouse and the entrance to Tobermory Bay. She and her sister ships are regular visitors, and they're about the biggest boats we see in this constricted waterway. She's the Yeoman Bontrup, a self-discharging bulk carrier, and she's down to her lines having loaded aggregate at Glensanda quarry at the south end of Morvern. Everything at Glensanda is on a giant scale: it's the UK's largest 'superquarry' and one of the largest in Europe, unique in that all access is by sea; some 7 million tonnes of granite is extracted annually; and the ships that service her are big: the Bontrup has a deadweight (a measurement of the fully-laden weight of her cargo, fuel, etc), of nearly 100,000 tonnes.

At this time of year, navigating the Sound of Mull isn't too difficult. On a summer's day, with the waters crowded with ferries, fishing boats, yachts and other pleasure craft, she has a hard time: it's not unusual for her to have to use her horn. To make matters worse, these ships have to navigate the Sound on a fine day when the passage is busy, and when the Sound's infamous sea fog suddenly starts rolling in from the north.

The aggregates carried in the Yeoman ships go all over Europe. AIS, the ships' identification system (link here), states that this particular load is destined for Rostok in Germany.