Another fine day here in the West Coast.

Why would you want to live anywhere else?

The main town in Colonsay and a wee Island on the way, anyone recognise it?

My Office

Port hand view

It was a lovely fresh day.  The sun shone from early on and turned the hills a wonderful colour.  On the way across I took a couple of photos with my phone so not great quality.

Off south to Colonsay tomorrow, weather forecast says that a high pressure area is to be established over the Irish Sea for the next few days, so that should make life comfortable.

For Ian Ramsay I owe an apology, I should read things more carefully.  This ship, the Isle of Mull, was constructed at Appledore Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd.. which at that time was a subsidiary of British Shipbuilders.  Clyde Built and not in North Devon as I stated.  

To the outer Isles and back

It was an early start but well worth it as we left Oban just before 7am with a full load for Coll and Tiree and the sun just rising behind the town as we headed out West.  I did most of the watch across to the Sound of Mull, past Tobermoray and then over to Coll.  Sunshine all the way and the first signs of spring with a strong hint of green on the fields lower down near the shore.  

Still a strong swell coming into both of the piers but there wasn't any wind fortunately.  Our cargo was mainly empty cattle trucks from all over Scotland, they will be loaded up by now and heading back on the Lord of The Isles presumably for auctions somewhere this week.  Huge trucks that just fit into the space on board, the driver's are amazing at how they manoeuvre these vehicles around in the tight confines of the car deck.  Like many of the vessels in the fleet this one was built over 20 years ago when cars and trucks were considerably smaller.  An original mini was on board and is now completely dwarfed by the 4x4's that are very popular around this part of the world.  Glad I don't have to buy their fuel though.  £1.50 a liter on Mull I believe.

Up and down

My but we had a bumpy ride down to Colonsay today, not a great amount of wind, a yachtsman's gale but nothing normally to trouble us in particular.  No, it was the steep swell coming from the South West that made things uncomfortable.  It was probably due to the shallow water that it was like that, but the ship fell into the holes that appeared at the bow and things were clattering and banging about.

Fortunately the pier at Colonsay is well sheltered from that direction so despite a bit of a surge coming in we were in and off quickly.  Quite a number of passengers on board doing the round trip today, pity it's not better visibility for them.  A van and three cars were all that was going to the island, with only the 80 odd folk living there I guess it's not much surprise that there is such little traffic.

This Saturday we are being taken off the Mull run and heading out to Coll and Tiree again.  Not to everyone on board's pleasure, but for my mind the early start is more than compensated for in the pleasant scenery on the way there and back.  But then that might be the yachtsman in me, incidentally I heard dark mutterings today about b** wafi season starting up soon.  (WAFI Wind assisted flaming idiots)  Needless to say I don't go out of my way to mention my main hobby.

All afloat again

Bus to Oban this morning and lots of burns in full spate painting their white stripes down the hillside to look at.  As they say it keeps the dust down.

A quick trip south to Colonsay, quite choppy on the way but fortunately it is well sheltered from the SW so no troubles dropping off our 3 vehicles and 9 passengers.  Incredibly mild today, temperatures in double figures.

Once back in Oban we had to do some trials on one of the bow thrusters that has been playing up, not stopping seems to be the problem.  A Geordie engineer on board had us doing circles off the Bay, right round and then back again. Just in case anyone wondered what we were doing.  

I'm scheduled to be relieved tomorrow at lunchtime and then I'll be on
the 12:45 bus back to Glasgow. It's been a good 2 weeks on here, the
crew on board have been great, good fun and very patient helping me
along with stuff. It has been an unusual last week with the trips out
to Tiree and Coll, it is a new thing for this ship and as long as
the weather holds out it should be a success as we came back today
absolutely full. There was a bit of shuffling around with the last of
the vehicles to squeeze every last one in, but we did it so that's
good for all.
Out for a curry and my first drink for a fortnight tomorrow, I'll be celebrating
my birthday from a few days ago which passed without incident on here.
It will probably be pretty quiet on the blogging front for a while but I'll be up and running
again on the 23rd of February when I rejoin. Thanks for reading, and
don't be shy about leaving a comment, it would be good to hear from my
readers.

Dinner

This was purchased from a local fisherman in Oban yesterday. Unfortunately he passed away this afternoon when swimming in a pot.

Colonsay school visit

Day starts with heaving Oban rain, despite the best waterproofs that
Mr Gore can provide, it seems to get through, perhaps it's by osmosis
through the soles of the feet?
We did a couple of trips over to Craignure and for the first time I
loaded the car deck through the bow door which requires a bit of
mirror image thinking. Heavy stuff, cars for the lifts, ambulances
etc. now have to go down the opposite side. There's more to loading
these vessels than meets the eye you know.
Lunchtime we loaded up with BT vans and various other vehicles for
Colonsay. On the return trip we had all the local kids on a trip to
Kingussie to go skiing?? They wanted to pay the bridge a visit, so I
was happy to oblige as we were passing the Garvellachs at the time
there was some close scenery to look at. Despite me telling them all
about our Safety Management System and the Cal Mac interpretation of
the ISM Code the kids seemed to be more interested in the windscreen
wipers and why the ship wouldn't go any faster. I guess at Primary
School age they haven't managed to appreciate the enjoyment of tidy
paperwork and slick administration.
Tomorrow we are back off to Coll and Tiree, early start but we get the
chance to cruise the Sound of Mull both ways, which is great. When we
get back to Oban at 3 we'll pick up the Mull service until the early
evening. Fabulous scenery today, the hills have a good coating of
snow contrasting against the brown heather, the Paps were looking
particularly good.

Spectacular scenery

We made it this time, two visits to Coll and one to Tiree.  Pretty tricky stuff though, the swell had died down but it was still a bit tricky with the ship moving around in the seas.  

The locals will have been delighted to see the men from Hydro Electric who were there to repair their power supply, fortunately Cal Mac have their own generator to power the Link Span, otherwise not to sure what they would have done.  

These were my first visits to these Islands and they are very beautiful in their bleakness, if that makes sense?  One thing that surprised me was how low lying, or flat they are, nothing like Mull with its mountains.  Bit more like Linconshire really.

To the Islands and back
Another early start, up at 4:30 ready for a 6:00 shift over to #2 berth so that we can load through the bow, both Tiree and Coll are stern too.  We set off on time at 6:45 after a bit of a fraught loading.  There was a lot of heavy trucks and loading for the two ports knowing that there was cargo coming on at the first, Tiree, for Oban makes for a difficult stow.  It was a good passage across to Tiree but there was still a worryingly large swell coming up from the South as we approached the island.

We dropped the starboard anchor off the pier and then dropped back to go starboard side alongside.  Because of the conditions frequently encountered here we take extra heavy ropes from the shore to tie up with.  We got in but the ship was still surging up and down from the swell coming into the bay.  I was standby on the ramp, if there was any sign of the ship moving away then I was to whip it up to prevent it getting damaged.  After a few vehicles one of the shore lines snapped, we replaced it but shortly after this the swell got too much to continue, up went the ramp and off we went leaving a few vehicles and a truck.  We got alongside in Coll but it was clear when we had tied up that there was no way we could work the ramp so we let go and headed off back to Oban.

Tomorrow we are going to have another go, calling at Coll twice this time.  They are keen to get some of the trucks off the island as it has been nearly a week since they managed to get goods ashore.  We did get the fuel off to top up the power station on Tiree, apparently there wasn't that much in reserve so they'll be pleased about that.  Forecast looks much better for the next few days so fingers crossed that we can make it in to Coll tomorrow.

Abandoned trips and wind ups

We set off for Coll and Tiree at the crack of dawn with a good load on board.  A couple of hours later when we were clear of the Sound of Mull it was clear that the swell coming up from the south was going to prove to be a problem.  The two ports confirmed that it was untenable to berth safely at either island so we turned back to Oban and our passengers with their vehicles had to return to the mainland. Tomorrow we are going to have another go, this time with a full cargo as we are looking to be carrying three days worth of cargo.

On a lighter note one of the crew has an electronic butterfly, coloured a bright pink it flutters around inside its glass jar and looks quite genuine.  The story is that it must have been brought here from abroad in a vehicle. Amazingly enough this butterfly has now reproduced and produced eggs, novel for a butterfly, even an electronic one.  There are a couple of crew members now going around with a matchbox wrapped in cling film containing the eggs nestling in a bed of cotton wool, they are keenly looking forward to the hatching in a couple of weeks as long as they keep the eggs in the warm moist conditions required.  If they do hatch it will be a first for four peppercorns

Stormy weather

We knew about the weather coming in, it has been forecast for a number of days, but I guess nothing quite prepares you for what is a full blown North Atlantic depression, it reminds me of why I don't go deep sea any more.  Today we did three runs to Mull and back, each time the weather was deteriorating and the wind force going up a notch, I had 12 degrees of leeway on to keep her on course with the area around the South of Lismore like a boiling cauldron with the tide and a Gale force 8 wind across it.  At 14:00 we set off but turned back due to the height of the waves, it was blowing about 55 to 60 knots and I noted that the barometer had dropped 6mb in an hour, I'll have to take a photo of the barograph trace.  We are now lying alongside at Oban with every mooring rope out and the engines ticking over just in case we need them at short notice.  

We are being taken off the Mull run tomorrow and are scheduled to visit Coll and Tiree, the Lord of the Isles that usually serves these islands didn't sail at all today so with our bigger capacity we can take two day's worth while she does our regular runs out to Craignure.  I say that we are scheduled to sail to Coll and Tiree, let's see if we make it.  

Checklists and routines

On Tuesday and Thursday's we follow the normal summer timetable in that we ply back and forward between Oban and Craignure from early morning to mid evening, during the summer this is the way of things every day, as there are no jaunts off to Colonsay.  It means every hour we berth and every two hours we are returning to the same berth, this leads me on to thinking what precautions we should be following so that mistakes or errors don't occur with all this repetition

It is essentially the same procedure at every berthing, to assist and guide we have a checklist that is followed by the watch keeper and then confirmed to the Captain or Mate who is berthing the ship.  This is the norm in most vessels where they have similar lists that are followed when carrying out a manoeuvre or complex process. 

One could assume that this adherence to routine would prove to be foolproof, but I wonder if there has been any academic studies published that have looked into the way that complex routine procedures and tasks are carried out?  Are there any pitfalls evidence that they do work or otherwise?  I would have thought that there may be many, indeed a fertile source of material for psychology students, but where would they be?  Do any of my readers know of any published studies that are available?