Winter Sailor

The Sound of Mull has been remarkably empty of traffic over the holiday period.  A few CalMac ferries have passed, and one small bulk carrier.  In fact, despite the clouds, we've seen far more 'planes flying over us than ships in the Sound.  The dawn view out over the Sound this morning in some ways mirrors Alan G's picture yesterday of an Arbroath sunset.

Our visitors left first thing this morning for the long drive back to Essex.  The sun was out when they arrived a few days ago, and appeared in brief intervals yesterday, but otherwise they saw more rain than anything else.  So it was fully to be expected that the weather would turn fine literally as they drove off down the road.

A little later, we walked up the hill at the back to get some exercise, stopping occasionally to watch as cloud shadows chased patches of sunlight across the hillsides.  In this picture the old wall built some time in the middle of the 19th century to separate the Ormsaigbeg croft lands below from the township's common grazings above can be clearly seen, as can the fence which was put up more recently to replace it.

We climbed to the top of the ridge behind the house and stood for a time with the sun on our backs looking across the twin lochans to Stacan Dubha and, in the distance, the Isle of Eigg, before beginning to make our descent, only to stop in amazement....

....at the sight of this yacht, pictured as it was about to pass the headland below us.  We didn't see her later further into the Sound, so can only assume her intrepid skipper turned her west, perhaps to pass to the west of Mull.  This was not the sort of traffic we'd expected to see.