Cable-Laying Progress

Many thanks to Ritchie Dinnes for these pictures of the work that was carried out yesterday at Mingary Pier to connect the superfast broadband cable....

....from the shore to the Rene Descartes.  It's evidently a huge operation involving a large number of men and a great deal of equipment.

Since then, the Rene Descartes has been working her way across the Sound in almost perfect weather.  Unexpectedly, she seems to move crab-wise as she lays the cable, keeping the ship stern-on to the wind.  By early afternoon today she had disappeared into Tobermory Bay.

She doesn't just lay the cable along the bottom.  A plough is used to bury it, so passing bottom-dredgers don't go and pull it up again.