Beauty and the Beast

The 43,700 dwt Yeoman Bank moved into the misty north end of the Sound of Mull at about half past seven this morning just as the 240 dwt Eye of the Wind was coming north. The latter was tied up in Oban on Saturday and is tonight anchored off Rum with a destination of Portree.

The two ships make a wonderful contrast: the frail Eye with its gossamer rigging, designed to catch the wind, against the brutal, slab-sided utilitarian bulk of the aggregate carrier.

The weather cleared steadily as the day progressed, until we had warm sunshine over lunchtime. But there are changes afoot - in the late rising of the sun and its disappearance, in Ormsaigbeg at least, over the hill by six in the evening. The storm of a week ago has taken the freshness out of the leaves, so the sycamores around Meall mo Chridhe now carry a brown tinge while....

....the geese are on the move - these are greylags - calling as they cross the sky.