Wednesday 18 July 2012

Kilchoan Drought Breaks

This part of the Highlands has just come to the end of an unprecedented period without Kilchoan Sunshine.  Since the end of June we've had a mere 20mm of rain, just enough to keep the crofters' sheeo in feed while providing the more leisured classes with masses of real sunshine.  So we are currently sporting a very un-Highland tan.  Many people down south, where it's been a bit wet, don't believe this.

As with everything here, such a sunny record ended spectacularly, with 25mm of rain between about 11.00pm last night and 8.00am this morning, with a further 6mm by midday.  Not that the burns are rushing torrents as they would normally be after such a deluge: it'll take several days of this to even wet the sponge-like peat enough for it to start to release water.

The photograph above, of the CSL Thames passing us this morning, gives some idea of how the day started.  The mournful sound of its foghorn didn't help to cheer the day.  It also happened to be a day without electricity - again - an outage which seems to be caused by the work on our new, improved, electricity-dependent water supply.

Not that we were left without amusement.  The Scottish Fisheries Protection vessel Minna moved slowly eastwards along the Ormsaigbeg shore around 3.00pm, while....

....its RIB came close in, with a man in the bow poking around with a long stick.

They continued poking around as they went into Kilchoan Bay, before suddenly giving up and speeding back to their ship.  They're obviously looking for something.  Fish?

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