Malingering in Mallaig

The rather catchy title to this post is courtesy of Norman (he of the 3 dogs, house in Cornwall and HUGE motorhome that you've met in here before). His inspiration just had to be shared, so Malingering in Mallaig it is. Actually appropriate too as we ended up staying longer than planned.

Once the fog had cleared we had a little wander around the rather nice harbour area with the Isle of Skye in the background:

The sun even came out to let us admire the Mallaig lifeboat, with a spot the Nordhavn opportunity too:

The pleasure craft area was very quiet indeed, unlike when we have been around here before. That was 6 years ago mind you and everyone seems to have bought a lock-down boat since then so the lack of shiny white GRP could only be due to the grim weather. The fishing boat fleet has dropped in numbers too - apparently there are only 7 local boats now:

The main contributor to the harbour income is from the fish farm vessels that come in to discharge the farmed salmon and various diseases too perhaps. They then get taken by road tanker to Fort William and the processing plant. We were told that they are planning for over 30 tankers per day shortly - that is a lot of fish, with most of it going to China.

The traditional fishing fleet have to pay 2% of the landed catch value in harbour dues. During January / February this income was not even eough to pay for the harbour rubbish skip disposal costs, that gives you an idea of how the local economy has changed.

One place that is still thriving is the boatyard which repairs fishing craft by hauling them up an elderly slipway with an equally elderly winch arrangement. Here are two being fettled:

Finding a gap in the rain showers to complete the painting work was tricky for the yard guys. We learned that there is so much work for them that the owner would like to find 5 more staff. The fishing boats now tend to be crewed by imported men, around £350 a week is the going rate. We saw them spending their wages in the local Co-op. Maybe P and O ferries had been watching what is happening with the fishing fleets and follwoed suit? 

We also learned a lot about some employment contracts for the CalMac ferry staff. To say they are generous is an understatement. It seems that if you go on a training course, for each day you are being trained, you get a day off afterwards.  If you work on your day off to cover for someone else being sick or on vacation, then you get three more days off for doing it. No wonder they have issues.

We havn't had any old lifeboat pictures for a while so Mallaig gives us the opportunity to correct that:

This one is in light commercial use still.

We did have a forecast of one relatively dry day and we were tempted to take the train to Fort William. Not to see Fort William, as it is a bit of a tip really (bar the big supermarkets) but because the journey is so beautiful. Well, thanks Scotrail. There are two trains a day now, one around 6am and one around 6pm. Totally useless, thanks to the various disputes going on with the unions and staff shortages.   Scotrail (now run by the Scottish government) has an emergency timetable going on and has cut about a third of all their trains across the whole of Scotland. Have a look at BBC report. What with this mess and the CalMac ferry issues we reported on in a previous post, the SNP transport minister must be under more than a little pressure.

Since the trains are not running we opted for the bus, feeling brave and more than a little worried about how many folks would be on it as the train is no longer an option. The trip to Fort William was on a nice VanHool coach, beautifully driven by a lady who had to be well into her 60s. Pretty quiet too. After puddling around the town and raiding Morrisons, we came back on a little bus that only had three folks (including us) on it until Arisaig when a few more climbed on board. Apparently the early morning run to Fort William has been full recently with people turned away. So glad we went at Lunchtime. 

Initially we asked to stay in Mallaig until Friday when better weather was supposed to kick off. However, we had been told that we needed to leave on Thursday, but on Tuesday night the forecast windy weather got even worse. So, we decided that heading out the next morning would be sensible - the first day shown is Wednesday:

Neither day is very tempting and the obvious next stop for shelter from a westerly wind is an anchorage in a loch just to the north of Mallaig. However it is reported in all the pilot books as having very bad squalls in windy conditions thanks to the surrounding hills. Not ideal. The pontoons at the Kyle of Lochalsh would be very exposed in a SW or W gale and probably would be closed anyway. Some other anchorages have steeply shelving sea beds and again, not ideal in a strong blow that is trying to carry you offshore. The best option looked like heading off to Plockton and anchoring there to let the nasty stuff blow through.

A 6:15am alarm was not nice but we roused ourselves, got the boat ready (in pouring rain) for an 8am departure - you need to time the run north carefully as the narrows at Kyle Rhea have very strong tidal streams and turbulence. Dropping off our rubbish at 8am, Chris the harbour moorings man arrived and after a brief chat he told us we could stay until Friday as long as we were off the berth by 9am. Oh yes, a way better solution. Access to the Mallaig facilities and good shelter from the two days of strong winds / gales is nicer than sitting at anchor off Plockton, not wanting to go ashore in case the anchor drags. 

Our early start was put to good use though when the crew came back and started making some bread.

Maintenance News:

The Racor fuel filters for the main engine and the polishing filter live in a little cubbyhole and the 24v light fitting in there had started to play up. The holder was not always making proper contact with the bulb so it got swapped out for a new LED light fitting that we had been given by Norn Iron Keith many years ago. You might not remember Keith but you might recall Bailey, his rather obedient little dog.

Spotting any dirt or water in the bowls of the filters will be much easier with the bright LED in place:

although this picture doesn't really show how nice and bright it is now.