Scotland Adventure 2023 - Day 5
Life onboard ship is magical. We have 149 guests and 119 crew. Because this is a French ship the breads, butter, jam and cheeses are the finest. The advantage of a small ship is that we can sail into ports that cannot support large cruise ships. We arrive in these tiny harbor towns, drop anchor and go ashore in our lifeboats.
The ship travels at night and we arrive at our next port of call at 7:30 am each day. We have room service breakfast and start our day. Today we are in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. The island is 338 square miles and has a population of 2,900. At one time the population was around 12,000 but through a program of depopulation the farmers were displaced to make room to graze sheep. One program was to turn the farmers into fisherman. However the farmers didn’t have money to buy boats and fishing equipment. If they did catch fish there were no nearby markets to sell the fish. Other than that it was a perfect plan.
The town is very picturesque with brightly colored buildings lining the harbor.
Lunch onboard ship is always a delight. There is a full course menu in the dining room or a specialty lunch on the fantail each day.
Todays lunch menu on the fantail is all you can eat king crab legs, prawns and muscles.
We rode in our coach (not a bus) to visit Duart Castle. It was a one hour drive on a one lane road from Tobermory to Duart Castle. There were many occasions where we had to pull over to allow other traffic to pass by.
Duart Castle has a sorted history. The Macleans tended to end up on the wrong side of history. There was an event that inspired the red wedding in Game of Thrones. The Macleans learned of a planned uprising by a rival clan. They attacked a wedding party and killed 17 of the attendees and took the groom prisoner. Fortunately they had several dungeons in their castle to accommodate such guests.
One of the Maclean clan was our docent.
The Macleans supported the Jacobites in the war against England. The Jacobites lost and the English turned Stuart Castle into an English fortress and eventually destroyed it so the Scots could not use it again. After being abandoned for 180 years the Maclean family bought the castle from the current owners and have been restoring it.
Our ride back to the ship was memorable. I was sitting with my back to the helm as we approached the ship. The helmsman banged heavily into the ship several times. He would almost land us but then hit the throttle and banged the ship,again. The deck hands were yelling and trying to tell him how to drive the tender. I finally looked around after we tied up. The helmsman was no other than the ship’s doctor. I hope the other helmsman was not filling in for the doctor.
Here is the bumper bost. You can see our small ship at anchor in the upper right.
Back on the ship we had the owner of the Tobermory Distillery conduct a whisky tasting. She described the distilling process. Scottish law only allows three ingredients in the distillation of Scottish whisky. The ingredients are fresh spring water, yeast and malted barley. Her small distillery sells the vast majority of her production to Germany. Her greatest challenge has been the implementation of a 75% tax on whisky exports implemented after Brexit. Not very supportive of local industry.
Theses 10 and 12 year old scotch whiskies are quite good.
The evenings activity was the Captain’s welcoming reception and dinner. This a dress up event. We met Mary at her cabin which is across from ours. The Captain introduced his officer staff including the ship’s doctor. We had a six course meal. After dinner there was a show in the theater called Lady Pirates.
Tomorrow we will drop anchor in the northern part of the Isle of Skye in Portree.