Today started wet and grey. The weather stayed that way all day. As the plan for today was to do a load of laundry, see a few sights in Stornoway and then catch a ferry at 2, the weather did not pose a real problem.
The first thing I visited was Lewes Castle, a former baronial heap not a public building to which they have added a surprisingly small exhibition space which houses among other artifacts one of the six types of pieces from the Lewis Chessmen. The latter are some 93 chess figures carved by the Norse out of walrus ivory circa the 12th century found in Uig on Lewis in about 1831. The museum was crowded with a large number of middle aged and older tourists whom I assumed were like me taking shelter from the rain. However, when I was buying a liquid souvenir at the gift shop, the cashier asked me if I was off the cruise ship? Cruise ship? It turned out there was not one but two of them in the harbour. One docked next the ferry terminal and the other (larger) one anchored in the bay and lightering in passengers. I overheard someone in the ferry terminal say that one was en route to Iceland!
On the ferry, there was a lorry load of sheep on board which was parked on an open portion of the vehicle deck at the rear of the ship. Overlooking it was one of the outside passenger areas which had a notice saying "No smoking on account of hazardous material." I commented to a fellow passenger: "I didn't think that sheep were that flammable!" ;-) Either thank or they didn't want the sheep to breath second hand smoke!
The passage to Ullapool went by without incident. However, there were two more cruise ships anchored in the loch! It feels very weird to see four in one day. I don't think I saw that many in one day in Puerto Rico.
A near miss to seeing you on Holiday again his year!!! We can do better.
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