Trip's end

Tomorrow sees the end of my two weeks on board.  As ever I have learnt more about the trade and how the ship works.  Certainly I am a lot more confident about the job, in particular the loading of the car deck.  I find this to be the hardest part of the work as the navigation to and fro isn't too challenging, other than when the odd yacht or fishing boat launches itself at you on the way past.

I have loaded a few near or maximum cargoes in the last few days and it is quite satisfying when it comes together and everything gets squeezed in with the ship upright and of a reasonable trim.  The "lift" cars with their elderly occupants near the lift, the dangerous goods separated and no wasted space on the deck so that we were able to take all of the standby vehicles across.  Oh and on time as well.

Hopefully I'll be getting my own boat in the water soon and then I can keep you up to date with visits to ports other than Oban and Craignure.  

Sailing pals!

With the sun breaking out over the weekend a few of my yacht colleagues have been appearing.  I was overtaking one this afternoon on the way back to Oban, he was going to pass well clear down the starboard side when he came about and came across the bow passing a couple of hundred yards ahead of me. I would have altered round his stern but we were just at Lismore and Lady Rock.  I noticed he was looking up at me a lot as we slipped round his stern.  B****y yotties.

Off on the Tour de Mull

Tidal waters

Our passage between Craignure and Oban takes us past the very South
end of Lismore Island with its lighthouse and Lady Rock a distance of
about ¼ mile or less. The tidal range, that is the difference in
height between high and low water, isn't that great around here, it is
about 3 metres at the moment being spring tides and it goes down to
about a metre at neaps.
Despite the small range of tide the mainland and islands around this
part of the world cause this flow of water to be crammed into narrow
sounds and firths. This results in strong tidal currents, the most
famous around these parts being Corryvreckan which has its whirlpools
due to the nature of the seabed and the very strong tidal flow between
the islands at that point.
The waters around Lismore also have strong currents which we have to
take into account when steering our course to pass safely between the
Island and the rocks. I hope that you can see from the attached photo
of our GPS plotter two arrows, the blue shows the way the ship is
pointing and the red shows the actual course being made over the
ground. As you can see if you don't keep a good eye on the way the
ship is moving through the water then you would easily be swept up
onto the rocks. The strange thing is that at you approach the gap the
direction of the current goes right round so initially you are
steering one way to counteract the current then the other. As the
current hits the bow it actually makes the ship roll and swerve off
suddenly, not bad considering we weigh about 2,500 tons.

Aaargh!

Rain of Biblical proportions this morning, there was waterfalls coming down the side of the hill that I had never seen before.  In amongst this deluge I was in charge of loading up the car deck at Craignure, unfortunately the young lady on the shore's walkie talkie had become waterlogged & I couldn't make out what she was telling me about the vehicles ashore for loading.  I'd had a look and didn't think there was anything to worry about.

With just three trucks to load you will have to imagine my consternation when the third to last truck came down onto the ship and it had a trailer on the back making it about 21m long.  It came to a stop once it was a far as it would go with the trailer nicely blocking the entrance.  There was plenty of room on board but the two remaining trucks couldn't access it.  Fortunately the driver of the truck was able to back up and I had to call all the vehicle drivers back down to do a bit of shuffle about.  About 15 minutes late on departure combined with the gales and we never caught up with the timetable again.  Woops.  Everyone says that it has happened to them too.

Forgetful passengers

In the last couple of days we have had some notable & slightly strange events.  Yesterday a man was in his car about to leave the ship when he pulled over, I enquired what was the matter and he said he had lost his wife.  He waited a moment or two and then she duly arrived and off they went.  Another husband and wife, she somehow got locked in and he was outside the car, I wasn't there but somehow she eventually got out and they stomped off, clearly not talking. 

When we depart all drivers have to leave their vehicles and go into the passenger accommodation, before locking the car deck we do a check to make sure that no one is still in their car.  Walking along the line of cars today I came upon a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser with the ignition keys in place, and the engine still running.  

Every so often someone drives on and then forgets that they brought their car and gets off at the other end as a foot passenger leaving the car behind.

I find it quite encouraging that I'm no worse than many.

Scurrilous news

Should you oh reader peruse other publications, then you may have noticed in today's Daily Record there is a wee article about the CalMac ghost ships http://goo.gl/NDtQn  Apparently this may be true, that up to 800 trips in December were empty of vehicles or passengers, this is across the fleet of 22 vessels.  

Clearly this does not apply in the case of my present vessel the Isle of Mull that provides a vitally essential lifeline service to the good folk of Mull, many hundreds of them today.  We have carried out 14 crossings today with hundreds of passengers and vehicles, on time too despite the weather.  On the other hand I wouldn't be able to say the same for the good folks of Colonsay.

I don't know where the journalist who wrote the article got the figures from, but I wonder who in the head office, for that must be where they came from or the Government, leaked the statistics?