Monday 14/08/06

The Japanese lady leaves for Edinburgh and later on London. Later in the morning, the cruiseliner Calypso drops anchor off Lower Sandwick. She is an old lady, built in 1968 and revamped in 1999. The website admits that not all cabins are quite up to standard. Worse than that, she suffered a fire in the engine room on 6 May 2006. With the aid of 18 firefighters, the blaze was put out and the liner towed to Portsmouth. Back to the now and present, from the Coastguard Station, she does look a bit dirty and rusty. Tenders ferry passengers back and forth for tours of the island. It's cloudy and temperatures are well down, at only 13C. We take delivery of a French lady, whose luggage was lost (read: delayed) in the current security alert. At the moment, you may only take a few essential items in a transparent plastic bag as handluggage, everything else has to go into the case. This leaves our guest in the clothes she's standing up in, with no coat. Rome, from where she started, is warm, about 30C. Stornoway is cold - 13C. Mrs B lends her a warm coat. The cruiseliner leaves at dusk, as does the MV Oscar, which is taking the partly finished windturbines over to Holland for completion.

Postscript: The luggage did turn up, the next morning.