The Small Isles

Back in the 1980's I spent 2 nights with the Glasgow RSPB on Rum in the Inner Hebrides. The weather was absolutely superb, and ever since then I have been promising to do what is adversed by Cal Mac as "The Small Isles Cruise" which is basically a 7 hour non landing cruise round Eigg, Muck, Canna & Rum.

So nearly 30 years on, I finally got round to doing it. I had been telling the family for years that it was good. The trip is however, very much 'weather dependent' and as such I had been watching the forecast since last Sunday. Despite a developing low in the South of Scotland, Mallaig would be dry and as such we were good to go. We left Glasgow in the pissing rain on Saturday morning & by the time we got to Fort William it was dry still pissing! However, once we started to head West towards Mallaig, the skies started to clear and by the time we got to Mallaig at 1pm it was dry.

We dropped our bags at the pre booked B&B and after a sandwich we headed for the boat. Soon we were seeing rafts of Manx Shearwater and Guillemots, Razorbills and the odd Puffin. A Bonxie was also noted:

Manx Shearwater

Bonxie

First stop was Eigg and then onwards to Muck where the Veery was last year:

Muck

Black Guillemot

Onwards past Rum I was increasingly scanning for Eagles and we were rewarded with a single Golden Eagle over Canna:

The harbour at Canna

Church on Canna

Bottlenosed Dolphins also put in an appearance:

You never know when they will surface so despite them being close to the boat getting images isn't easy!

Heading for Rum there were increasing numbers of Manxies:

Manxies

As we turned towards the landing site on Rum, I got my eye on a male Hen Harrier coming across the hillside. 

Kinloch Castle, where I had stayed in the 1980's:

My digs were in the Hostel round the back

The 7 hours had passed all too quickly and the ferry was soon back in Mallaig. We had prebooked evening meal in the Cornerstones Fish Restaurant in Mallaig from where we caught a brief glimpse of 2 Otters 'playing' in the harbour.