Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland, August 26, 2017

Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland, August 26, 2017

What a difference a day makes. We glided on glassy seas escorted by porpoises to the anchorage near the picturesque town of Portree arriving around 9:30 or so. Boarding the tenders was an easy operation compared to yesterday.

The population of the island is 12,000 but it was a lovely Saturday in August so I wouldn't be surprised if the visitors outnumbered the residents. We were the only ship in port but the island is reachable by bridge and ferry so is a popular destination. Every hotel and B & B had a "no vacancy" sign posted.

The island is beautiful, a combination of hills and valleys and mountains in the 2,000'+ range. What isn't a rich green is a pinkish purple as the heather is in full bloom. And sheep! When we first arrived I saw little white dots on the hills surrounding the harbor, grabbed the binoculars and confirmed they were indeed sheep. Not great flocks crowded together but spread far apart. It was so quiet that I could hear baaaaa baaaaa coming across the water.

We went on an excursion that took us to the northwest corner of the island and Dunvegan Castle, the home of the Chiefs of the MacLeods for nearly 800 years and still the family home. It looks like a castle should, perched high overlooking the Loch Dunvegan, surrounded by woodlands and gardens. It's yet another case of the Gulf Stream currents keeping the climate quite temperate as evidenced by the fuchias and hydrangeas in full bloom. We walked through a couple of floors of the castle, the walls covered with portraits of the clan Chiefs through the centuries proudly wearing the "loud" MacLeod plaid, the same bright yellow, black and red tartan adopted by our son Jay's alma mater the College of Wooster in Ohio. I told the woman in the gift shop that and she was tickled. Her eyes got very wide and she said, "Really?," and then told me what a delightful people Americans were.

We took the long way back to Portree along the western edge of the island. All the houses seem to be made of stone or cement blocks then coated with white plaster. Most of the houses are spread all over the hills with the occasional cluster in a tiny village. All the roads are two lane with the two traffic lights in Portree. And sheep, sheep, sheep scattered as far as the eye can see. Our guide, Chris, calls them "wooly maggots." He was trained as a biologist and had worked at various times during the 39 years he's lived on the island as a tree farmer. Once again an effort is being made to reforest Skye but it's successful only when the forests are fenced off. The sheep eat anything green.

The terrain is a result of volcanic action followed by glaciers. Despite the sun during our visit they get a lot of mist and rain which keeps it all so green. And the heather! August is the bloom month so the rounded hilltops are covered with purple mounds. There is a lot of fish farming (North Atlantic Salmon), scallop farming and oyster farming in the seas surrounding the island. When we walked through Portree to the pier you could smell fish and chips in the air. By that time we had spent all of our English pounds save a single penny coin so none for us. A HUGE cocoa brown Newfoundland dog seemed to occupy half of the pier. It was obviously his pier so everyone just stepped around him (he was much too big to step over!) to reach the tender back to the ship. Love me some quirky.

And speaking of, Chris told us all about the bridge that was built to connect Skye to the mainland. He grumbled that it was the government's first experiment with private funding of public projects which resulted in a contract guaranteeing the building company both bridge tolls and the elimination of the ferries there. Evidently the toll was the highest in Europe which didn't sit well with the islanders so they would take turns crossing the bridge and then refusing to pay the toll. It wasn't a criminal act so instead of being arrested the police would issue a ticket resulting in a fine which would also go unpaid. Chris said that eventually 80 of them were summoned to a court in Inverness (once again crossing the bridge and refusing to pay the toll) where the magistrate was not at all amused by the rowdy group that sang songs and generally wreaked havoc in his court. Sooooo they all received fines ranging from 200 pounds and up. Fines they ignored of course. Eventually the government capitulated and eliminated both fines and the bridge tolls. Chris said the problem remains that they all now have a criminal record and as such cannot enter the US but "Canada doesn't seem to care and in Australia we're practically royalty."

Jim and I both agreed that we wouldn't mind returning to Skye and staying longer.