Iona

 

Wednesday July 19 2017.

0630 Up Quick cup of tea and then out the door and walk to the bus stop to catch the early Bus to Oban. Today is the Mull, Iona and  Staffa tour day. It’s raining and blowing a half hooly all ready. We get into town early enough that Sally and Dianne can go up to Tesco for sticky buns. I’m not up to it and settle for a Bacon and egg sandwich in the ferry terminal. We all met up in the waiting area and boarded the ferry for the ½ hour ride to the Island of Mull where we caught the tour bus for the drive out to Fionna Port.  The road is only a single track so we did a lot of stopping for others to pass us in both directions! The trip took over an hour to go approx.., 20 miles. Up hill down dale twisty curvy and a lot of fun. Double decker we sat downstairs amd stayed dry and warm. When the rain stopped and you could see the scenery was breath taking.

Mull is quite a large island and the main town is Tobermory on the North East corner. We were going to the far South West Corner.

We eventually arrived and there were numerous other buses parked near the small wharf. We were told to get off and wait on the right side of the landing for our boat that would take us up to staffa.

We waited in the rain and wind. Blowing a hooley and a half at this point. Had to deploy the special Tilley Hat holder on devices. A small boat shortly arrived. It was obvious that their were too many people for the one boat. No bother they told us to wait for ten minutes and another boat would come get us. 15 minutes later it did. We boarded. Sally and I got tucked up inside where we could stay dry! Most of the boat was open but the did supply rubber coats.

We were on our way  toot sweet and roared out through the Bull hole anchorage and then the fun began. We were now in the open ocean with nothing between us and North America! Guess where the wind was coming from! We’re now up to two hooly’s and six foot seas with 50 of our closest friends on a rolling tossing yawing speed boat. Anyone outside was drenched pretty quickly and they would stay that way for the duration as there was no dry room. And no room inside. Now some of the paying guest’s were beginning to experience  what real boating is like. The shades of green was simply amazing. But no turning back. About an hour later we were at the Island of Staffa. But couldn’t land as now it was blowing 3 hooly’s! In case your wondering that’s a lot of hooly’s or about 40- 45 knots of wind. We can’t land as the pier is being covered by BIG WAVES rolling continuously over it. So we do a drive by of Finnigan’s cave make a u turn in a hollow and after another hour or so and after more green people we arrived at the island of Iona.

Iona is a Holy Island and has a restored Abbey on it. The Abbey was started by St. Columba when he came over from Ireland to spread the word. He was buried in the Abbey but at some point dug up and parted out so other churches would have holy relics. About 45 of Scotland’s Kings were buried in the church grave yard. Their grave monuments are now on display in the museum.

So we get to the landing the same time as the BIG Ferry and shortly after our buddy boat and during the tooing and frowing we hit the bottom with a thump! Judicious use of horsepower managed to get us off and along side the pier so we could all disembark ( Sea talk for getting off the $#%# boat. For a lot a rapid change from grey/green to Healthy pink as soon as they were on solid ground. Take note I didn’t say dry. We walked up to the Abbey walked around saw the sights. Sally said a few prayers and pretty soon it was time to catch the last ferry out of Dodge.

I could have spent the whole day on the Island but that was not to be. We got back on the bus and repeated the trip out only backwards.

We arrived back in Oban got off the Ferry and went to the bust stop. We had an hour to wait for our bus back to Dunstaffnige. But we had a gift of the High School Pipe band was practicing in the square so we were entertained and the time just flew by even if it did rain some more.