Wednesday 21/06/06

After a wild start to the day, just after midnight, the weather calms down. A friendly sun shines upon us at midday, but heavy rain, galeforce winds and stormforce gusts only 50 miles away. Have a look at the satellite and rainfall imagery from 12.30 today, above. The Central Belt [Glasgow / Edinburgh] is getting a walloping this morning. Looking at the latest weather reports, the barometer readings here (983 mbar) are the lowest in the country, which follows if you see the satellite image. The depression is sitting overhead. Ferries out of Mallaig and Oban are severely disrupted. Just after 1pm, Muirneag appears on the southeastern horizon, nearly 5 hours late.

Below a list of the cancellations to Caledonian MacBrayne sailings, as of 1 pm:

OBAN to OUTER ISLES
Today's 1340 sailing to Barra (including a planned addtional leg to Uist after yesterday's cancellation) has also been cancelled due to adverse weather. Next sailings are tomorrow (Thursday) at 0830 to Barra, and 1530 to Barra and Uist.

OBAN - COLONSAY
The 15.30 sailing to Colonsay from Oban has had to be cancelled due to weather. Next service is as scheduled ex Oban 09.00 Thursday

Claonaig service
Due to adverse weather conditions the 1200m hrs ex Lochranza and 1235 ex Claonaig have been cancelled. The service will resume at 1315 hrs ex Lochranza weather permitting. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Mallaig-Small Isles service will be reviewed on an hourly basis with a view to there being moderation in the weather, will update at approx. 1015h. Still no moderation with the weather will update at 1130h re. a possible sailing today. Will update at midday! Update at 1300h, still no improvement with the weather. Contact Mallaig for further info. 01687 462403

Mallaig-Armadale service
The 0810h ex Mallaig and 0850h ex Armadale have been cancelled due to adverse weather. Will update at 0900h re the 0935h sailing. The 0935h ex Mallaig and 1015h ex Armadale are also cancelled. Update at 1030h. The 1055h/1135h departures are also cancelled, will update at midday re the 1215h sailing. The 1215h/1255h departures are also cancelled, will update at 1300h re the 1335h sailing. The 1335h/1415h departures are also cancelled, the 1455h/1535h are also extrmely doubtful the earliest sailing if at all will maybe be at 1615h. Will update later.

Brodick - Ardrossan
Due to adverse weather the 0820Hrs ex Brodick has been diverted to Gourock. The 0900hrs and 1230 hrs sailings ex Ardrossan and the 1030hrs and 1105 hrs sailings ex Brodick have been cancelled. A decision will be made at 1300hrs regarding the 1330hrs sailing ex Ardrossan. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

After lunchtime, the showers that showed on the Atlantic radar move across the island. The heavy weather is wreaking havoc around Barra. A number of yachts engaged in a race get into difficulty and call on the Coastguard for assistance. One yacht lost its sail and had to be towed into Castlebay by the lifeboat. Another yacht ran aground at Vatersay, just to the south. And people who were ringing birds on Dun, south of St Kilda, had to be airlifted to mainland St Kilda. Their tents were blown away in the gales and had been without much food or water for two days. It was impossible for the lifeboat to approach Dun. What??? The lifeboat CAN'T go somewhere??? Wow!!! The cancellation of the Small Isles ferry out of Mallaig means that the reburial of John Lorne Campbell on Canna has had to be postponed. JLC was the proprietor of Canna between 1938 and 1996. He was buried in Italy, but to prevent his remains being interred in a communal grave, the National Trust for Scotland had arranged this re-internment on Canna. His wife, Margaret Fay-Shaw, who died in 2004, is buried in South Uist. Back in 1924, she went on a cycling holiday there. Weather continuing very changeable. Mrs B's cooker is fixed, but the wall behind it is unsuitable for public viewing. It's the solstice, but nobody here will be able to see anything of the sun.