Scotland Adventure 2023 - Day 6

Words never spoken in Scotland in September.  When will this heat wave and beautiful sunny weather end?  Everyone we talk too says we are in Scotland during the best weather week possible.  Thank you!  There is always a downside.  Everyone on the ship packed for cool weather. The most common comment is I only have one short sleeve shirt. I wish I brought a lot more.  The weather has been really nice.

We awoke in Portee harbor on the Isle of Skye.  Portee is named to commemorate a visit by King James V in 1540.  The king came to pacify the local clan chieftains.  Portee translates to Kings Harbor in Gaelic.  

Portee is a quaint little harbor town but not as decorative as Tobermory.

I do like this photo of the lobster pots overlooking Portee harbor.

We took an excursion on a scenic tour boat called the Stardust.  Captain Ian gave us the safety speach before the cruise.  He said in case of a real emergency “women and children first” but that is not the full statement.  The full statement is women and children first, follow me!  We cruised around the sound in search of the local fauna.

Our tour boat the Stardust with Captain Ian.

 We were not disappointed.  Captain Ian put us on a pod of at least fifty dolphins.  They surrounded our boat.

There was a much larger dolphin pod in the sound. This pod had split off to come play with us.

Then we went in search of a pair of sea eagles.  We found them and watched them soar overhead.  The sea eagles are three feet long and have a seven foot wing span.  Captain Ian tossed them a flounder and one of them swooped down and grabbed it.  

This is the best photo I could get of the sea eagle with my phone camera.

The sea eagle - obviously not my photo.

Nearby we visited a small island with numerous harbor seals lounging around.  There was a small land bridge from the island to the shore.  A baby lamb was bleating loudly to its mother.  The mother was on the mainland but the water was now too deep for the baby to cross.  The baby lamb would have to stay on the island for six hours until the tide goes out.  

There were many harbor seals on this small island.

Priscilla took this photo of our small ship as we re-entered the harbor on our tour boat.

Back on the ship we had a cocktail and went see to a movie about killer whales (Orcas) feeding on herring in Norway The movie was being shown in the Blue Eye lounge.  The Blue Eye is a bar built below the water line.  It has two large glass observation ports.  I never thought having a hole in the bottom of a ship was a good idea.  But, it has a nice theater and we enjoyed the movie.  

We had dinner on the fantail and the ship departed Portee at 7:00 pm. It is a short trip to our next destination so the captain advised we would be traveling slowly so we will arrive at 7:00 am to pick up our harbor pilot.  Our next port of call is Stornaway on the Isle of Lewis and Harris at the top of the outer Hebrides.  

Priscilla took this photo of Tobermory through the purple heather.