Apologies that the blogs are behind but no signal of any sort in either Jura or Islay..

On Friday we headed south again for Port Ellen on Islay, Bunyip was also heading in this direction and so they were not to shake us off just yet. The key consideration was to be whether the Classic Malts Cruise which is a bi-annual event had finished, their last stop was Port Ellen and there was a real risk that we would not get in....... fortunately we arrived just as a couple of boats had left and so picked a brilliant berth on the pontoon amongst the remaining Classic Malt boats who had been partying hard the night before and had spent the previous 2 weeks sampling whisky from every distillery possible and enjoying the regular ceilidhs laid on for them.

Port Ellen is a stunning little town, not many facilities in terms of pubs, restaurants etc (just the usual Co-op) but it has stunning sandy beaches that would do the Caribbean proud and as we walked along the beach during the afternoon we spotted a large Heron helping himself to lunch from the rich waters. These islands are so sleepy and relaxing and yet so friendly that we would recommend them to everyone.

For the wildlife spot we can report that in addition to the Heron, Port Ellen has a resident seal, called Rupert. He is almost tame now (after 7 years of living in the harbour) and has trained himself to spot a returning fishing boat at ½ mile...... within seconds he is by the side of the boat, bouncing out of the water, performing for free fish. The fishermen seem equally well trained to have allocated a small share of their daily catch for Rupert and it appeared a ritual for them to take 5 minutes to feed him before unloading the catch of the day. These fishing boats were just 15 metres behind us and so we had front row seats for each performance, we saw only 1 small fishing boat arrive and not feed Rupert (much to Rupert's disgust) he snorted and huffed and attempted to bar it's way back out of the harbour.

We were moored next to a large boat (Freedom 39) whose skipper as well as enjoying the odd dram or two indulged in Scuba diving so I was fascinated to see him return from a dive with a large netted bag of Scallops..... being nosy (as I am) I asked whether he had indeed dived for them himself or just intercepted one of the returning fishing boats. He had been near the rocks at the entrance where the dredgers can't reach and had a large haul..... I chatted to him and watched him open the scallops and clean them. Hilton was very generous and we acquired a large bowl of hand dived, freshly caught scallops that were to become dinner with bacon, garlic and a dressed salad..........yummy!
Now the by-product of Hilton's pastime was that he had the fish slops, together with a couple of mackerel that he would fed Rupert with..... Rupert did not disappoint and performed a number of leaps from the water to retrieve yet another sitting of dinner, Rupert is, as you can probably imagine a large and rather portly looking seal who lives the life of Riley.

I have to report that Stu has not had a shave since my birthday and is now sporting a fairly healthy beard, although he is disgusted to note the amount of grey that is in it. I am not sure how long this will survive but I promise faithfully to capture it for the record before it is shaved off.