Letter from Iona - #7

Wow....nearly two months!! Who would believe it!

Not much to report this week so Dan gets to type =) Finally I have relinquished the power... albeit temporarily!

Although our activities have been somewhat limited this week ironically Mother Nature has been fruitful with some amazing weather recently. Our most exciting day was without a doubt Sunday. Sheila, our employer, arrived in the bar at 2:45. She had heard that a large basking shark had been spotted on the morning Staffa run and suggested, as it was quiet, that I hop on the next boat and see if we can spot it. Katie had just started her break and Sheila gave the go ahead (as Katie may have been a little late for her evening shift) for Katie to come along, pending room on the boat.

While I waited for my relief to show up Katie ran and got jackets and the camera. I grabbed a bag of Prawn Cocktail crisps (or chips as we call them in North America) and managed to get on the boat. Off we went to Staffa while we desperately searched for a Dorsal fin or anything related to a large fish. Unfortunately nothing appeared, except for the dock at Staffa. We skipped out on the cave and this time went to the top of the island for a relaxing stroll while we waited for the boat to return. We spotted Gannets, Gulls, heard that infamous CornCrake and enjoyed the unique geological properties of the island.

The boat soon returned and we headed back to the Isle of Mull. Graham had told me that didn't have much time to search for the shark but they'd try a bit harder on the way back. The fish got away again as unfortunately we didn't see anything except jellyfish, birds and plenty of salt water. Not even our new friend Sammy the Seal made an appearance. I know we'll have other opportunities in the future. A little info about the Basking Shark.. it is the 2nd largest fish in the world after the Whale Shark. They have spotted a 15 foot long and a 25 foot long shark in the area. I'm certain we'll see one ... one day!

I mentioned Prawn Cocktail crisps in the above story. One of the quirks that we've found are the many different flavours of crisps that are available. I've sold plenty of Ready Salted, Salt & Vinegar, Ketchup (Tomato Sauce), Smokey Bacon (mmm!), Cheese & Onion, Prawn Cocktail and the brand new... Worcestershire Sauce (very mmm!!). Strange eh?

The website also lists their 'full arsenal'... some are quite frightening if you ask me.

Barbecue

Beef & Onion

Cheese & Onion

Heinz Tomato Ketchup

Marmite Yeast Extract

Pickled Onion

Prawn Cocktail

Ready Salted

Roast Chicken

Salt & Vinegar

Smoky Bacon

Worcester Sauce

Anyways, that will leave you either hungry or nauseated! That's all for this week. We shall enclose a few pictures from Staffa as we close out this weeks log.

Special congrats to Katie's cousin Brad and fiancee Jen! They have announced their engagement and the knot shall be tied next fall. 2 for 1 deal Brad?

That's all from Iona... for now.

Cheers,
Dan & Katie

Letter from Iona - Special Edition

Hi All:

We thought we'd send out a special email after our adventures yesterday. You may need to set yourself up with a nice cup of tea as it may take a while to get through this. Here's how it went:

5:30 am - We awoke to the grey, overcast skies of another cloudy day here. But, thankfully we knew that the weather could change at any minute and so looked forward to some sunshine. Prepared our knapsacks with lots of food, sunscreen, mittens, camera, batteries, coats, and other necessities for a typical day in Scotland.

6:30 am - Left the house to walk to the Ferry station. Along the way, stopped in at the bakery to grab some breakkie....Dan had a chocolate square and Katie had a maple syrup flapjack (this is all that was ready at that time in the morning!).

7:00 am - Bought our return ferry tickets and the ferry left from Iona to Fionnphort. Uneventful ride, except we met a couple from Hobart, Tasmania on our way who were also going to the games.

7:10 am - Arrived in Fionnphort and transferred onto the bus.

7:30 am - Bought our return tickets and sat at the back for extra leg room for 'Long Legs Pergau'. This is the first time we've been on board anything that moves faster on the ground than the speed of our feet in over a month!! Saw Tony, the bus driving husband of our co-worker Jean when we picked him up in the small town of Bunnessen.

8:45 am - Arrived in Craignure feeling a bit quesy from sitting at the back of the bus. This was mostly due to the crazy driving over here, dodging sheep, cows, and cars! But that quickly passed and we stopped for a break.

9:00 am - Boarded another bus, buying another round trip ticket and headed off to Tobermory. By now, the weather was closing in and the mountains were beautifully covered by clouds! But the rain was only light and we were still optimistic that it would hold off.

10:00 am - Arrived in Tobermory. Visited a nice little art shop right where the bus dropped us off and asked about all of the 'Balamory' paraphenalia that we could see around the city. Apparently, this is a kids tv show that was filmed in Tobermory about 2 years ago. Now, all the kids come to see 'Jacko's Paint Shop' and other such things and it has really changed their entire tourism focus. Tobermory is a great place for this kind of thing as all of the buildings are already brightly painted and it looks like a little kids village anyway.

10:15 am - Finally found the pipe band that was to lead us to the Games Field. We had gotten off the bus one stop earlier than we should have and so, got a little bit lost. But all we had to do was listen for the pipes, and we found the little village with them playing there. As we waited, the MacLean Clan Cheiftans started walking towards us to the beat of the music from the drums and we all fell into the parade following the 'Pied Pipers' as they were, up the hill to the Games Field.

10:30 - 3:00 pm - Enjoyed watching the various events of the games, including a lot of highland dancing, triple jump, long jump, high jump, caber toss (throwing a big log as far as you can), hammer throws (throwing a hammer as far as you can), weight toss (throwing a weight as high as you can), and lots of running races. It was great fun and the sun even came out for a while. They had an excellent turnout and had a very diverse crowd. There were scouts there from Germany and France along with cyclists and other tourists from the USA, England, and Scotland.

3:00 pm - We decided to head back to where the buses were (in the town itself) as we didn't want to miss the last ferry back to Iona at 6:30. We weren't sure what time the bus left, but we were sure that with so many people there, it would probably run fairly often. Along the way, we stopped to buy Katie new shoes (hooray!! - no more blisters!), a new battery charger (hooray!! - no more dead batteries!), and the thing that did us in was the stop for ice cream (Katie's idea:( )

3:30 pm - We slowly made our way to the buses (there were two), munching on our ice creams and enjoying the nicer weather. As we came up to the bus stop, one of the buses (that looked full) departed. There was still another bus waiting there, so we went to the door to get on it. Then disaster struck. The driver told us that the bus that had just left was the last bus until 5:50!!!! This meant that there was no way we could catch the 6:30 ferry to Iona let alone get home that night. However, the driver did give us some hope in saying that when the next bus left for Craignure at 5:50, one of the drivers took his bus to Bunnessen for the night, which is only 6 miles from Fionnphort. There is a little boat called the Volante that does a late night run for £5 each from Fionnphort to Iona. This was our best hope.

3:40 pm - Headed to bar after a slight reaction to the news. No worries though as there were no tears, only a few choice words and a few regrets for a certain ice cream stop. We figured that there were four options available to us.
1. Stay in Tobermory overnight and try to get back in the morning. This was not a valid option as we had to get to work by 12:00 pm and if we stayed, we would arrive back at 2 pm.
2. Hitch a ride to Craignure and try to catch the earlier bus that would meet the 6:30 pm ferry.
3. Go to Craignure at 5:50 and stay overnight there. Then, catch a bus in the morning to Fionnphort and get back to Iona at 10:45 am. This was a strong possibility.
4. Go to Bunnessen with the other driver and walk to Fionnphort, hoping to catch the Volante before it left at 8:30 pm.
Our first course of action was to cancel out option one. It obviously wouldn't work. Then, we saw some of the Mull and Iona Piping Society coming to the carpark after the games. If you recall, we sent pics of them from their trip to Iona last week, where Dan saw them play and talked to some of them. Being the very brave person that he is (and after much prodding and encouragement from the chicken, Katie), Dan walked brazenly up to one of the drummers and told him how much we enjoyed their music that day and then went into our sob story. Sadly, although the fellow was willing to give us a ride, there was no room in the inn as he had his entire family with him:(. So, plan number 2 didn't work. Dejected, Dan walked over to some sailboats that were moored on the land and started formulating plan number 5. Katie saw that this could lead to disaster and talked some sense into him:). This left us with options 3 & 4.
4:30 pm - Back at the bar, eating an apple, and drinking some apple juice. We called the Craignure Travel Information Centre to see if there were any rooms available that night and there were a few, so Katie took down the numbers of the establishments in case we needed them.
5:30 pm - The other buses had come in to take all of the people to Craignure. We went over to the bus drivers and met Anda who would be taking his bus to Bunnessen that evening. He said that he would be happy to take us as far as he could. Then, Katie had an epiphany. She remembered that Jean and Tony (we work with Jean at the restaurant and Tony is a bus driver) live in Bunnessen and wondered if Anda knew Tony. He did and pulled out his cell phone to give us their phone number. Katie called right away to see if they might be able to give us a ride to Fionnphort to catch the Volante, but nobody was home. Don't worry, said Anda, Tony will be home by 6:00 pm.

5:50 pm - Bus left with us onboard surrounded by a bunch of French scouts. They were rather rambunctous and loud, but they weren't that bad after a while. And then they started singing along with the elevator music playing on the bus, which included such selections as Feelings, When a Man Loves a Woman, Yesterday, and Ode to Joy. We were quite joyous when we reached Craignure and everybody but us left the bus.

6:15 pm - Reached Tony. He said he'd be glad to take us Fionnphort, just have the bus drop us off at his gate and walk up to the house. We're going to buy them a nice bottle of scotch as thanks for this.

6:30 pm - We left for Bunnessen with just Anda and us on the bus. Beautiful drive during which we saw a buzzard, two herons, 2 red deer, and lovely mountains and valleys. Also, Dan found out about a Canadian DC-3 that crashed into one of the hills during the war and there are still plane remains up on the hill. New project for Dan? Climb that hill!!!

7:30 pm - Arrived at Jean and Tony's gate. Thanked Anda and walked up the hill. We were met by Jean at the door and invited in for tea as the boat didn't leave until 8 pm. We had a nice chat with them and saw the new house that Tony is building on the adjacent property as his 'spare time project'.

7:45 pm - Drove to Fionnphort to catch the Volante. Said goodbye to Jean, Tony, and Sophie the dog, as the Volante came in. Then, the biggest excitement of the day (for Katie) happened. A huge grey seal popped his head out of the water right beside the pier!! We had heard about Sammy the Seal, but hadn't seen him. He is a massive Grey seal that all of the fishermen feed and he's pretty tame. So, we got some great shots of him in the water.

8:10 pm - Volante leaves Fionnphort pier for Iona.

8:13 pm - Volante arrives in Iona (a heck of a lot faster than the ferry!!). We disembarked and headed into the bar for some much needed food and drink. We had spicy wedges, J2O (juice), and tablet ice cream for dinner.

9:00 pm - Headed home for well deserved rest and relaxation before today's work begins.

One day, we will learn that ice cream is bad for you and you shouldn't eat it, but that day was certainly not yesterday.

Hope you enjoy this and if you need to take a nap in the middle of it, we understand as we know it's long.

Letter from Iona - 6

Hello All:

So here's what's been up this week.

We've had some wacky weather going on with days that start out beautiful and sunny, then 30 minutes later it's raining cats and dogs outside, then sun, then gusty wind, then rain, then cloud, then sun again.........Right now, the motto is, just wait 30 minutes and it'll be a totally different day outside. However, because of all these weather changes, we've been priviledged to experience 2 beautiful rainbows! We've attached a pic of one here, but the one yesterday was a double rainbow!! Sadly, we weren't able to grab the camera in time for that one. Katie was working, and Dan was reading.

Katie also saw an otter yesterday in the water outside of work. Apparently last year there was a whole family of them that lived at the bottom of the pier and they were seen quite frequently. But so far this year, this is the first otter that they've seen.


The other excitement for this week was the Mull and Iona Piping Society that visited us last Friday. Dan was able to catch them in action as they piped up the hill to the Village Hall playing 'Scotland the Brave'! There was a good turn out and in such a small hall, the music was very loud, but enjoyable. There was also a flutist, guitarists, vocalist, and a fiddler. Dan, of course, felt a pang of sadness when he saw the fiddle as it made him miss Felix (his fiddle), but he thoroughly enjoyed hearing the music and making small talk with a number of the musicians afterwards. He then followed them to the pub to meet me after work as we said goodbye to our kiwi friend Jess. She's left now and has been replaced by two Aussies. They only arrived two days ago and we haven't had much chance to get to know them as they live in the flat above the Spar Shop.



Our biggest excitement by far will be tomorrow as we once again leave the Isle of Iona and this time head to the Isle of Mull where we will attend the Tobermory Highland Games. The Piping Society will be there as well and there will be music, dancing, and athletics. This means that we worked today, but will have tomorrow off. We'll be up for the 7 am ferry (much to Katie's chagrin and Dan's happiness!) and onto the bus to Craignure. Then we switch buses and head to Tobermory. We're really looking forward to some new scenary and fun for a day. We'll be sure to take pics and have stories to tell next week.

Other than that, there's not much else to tell except that we wish the Harry Potter fans all the best in the release of the latest book and hope that they all enjoy reading it!

Until next week!

Letter from Iona - 5

Hi All:

We've had quite the week! We experienced 4 days of 'Scottish Fog' from Thursday through till Monday morning. Monday we awoke to blue sky and cirrus clouds! It was quite an ordeal to get the motivation to head to work. As luck turned out we both got the afternoon off and we decided to become beach bums. Across from 'our' house is a small beach which is usually jellyfish and seaweed free, which was the case on that Monday. Katie, being part fish, of course showed me up and ran right in. I needed a bit more coaxing but eventually bit the bullet and threw caution to the wind. Another reason for the quick dip was to wash off some hair. Katie kindly once again put on her barber hat and gave me a much needed brush cut (#2 this time!).

Because of last Wednesday's lovely weather, we chose to climb to the summit of Dun' I again. We've attached a couple of the pics from there, including one of Scooter, standing at the very highest point on the whole island! We also discovered the Well of Eternal Youth, which Dan promptly drank some of. We'll see what comes of that! We then had the idea that we might find some seals on the north end of the island as some have been spotted there, so we walked up to that end, but alas there were none to be found. After this, we had reservations at the restaurant for dinner (to celebrate our anniversary). We ate & drank so much!!! Afterwards, we found our way home and had a lovely sleep. One of the nice things about working here is that we generally don't start until 11 or 12 o'clock. This means that we can choose to either sleep in (which Katie does frequently), or get up early and go food shopping or do more reading (Dan does this a lot!).





Today, we had the most excitment of our whole time here. The owners of the restaurant are all a family with 3 sisters working together. Their brother doesn't work in the restaurant, but operates a sightseeing boat company to islands of Treshnish and Staffa. Because we are employed by the three sisters, we were able to hop onto this boat for a 5 hour sightseeing trip FOR FREE!! This was quite a bonus as it usually runs about £17.50 per person for just one island. On the Treshnish Islands, we saw puffins (see pics below), and almost saw a basking shark (one was reputedly in the area). The weather was lovely today and made for a nice boat trip. Then we headed to Staffa. On the way, we saw some great grey seals (much to Katie's delight!), and once on the island, visited Fingals' Cave. The Island of Staffa is said to be the other end of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, according to local legend. It was all formed by volcanoes, 60 million years ago! So, we saw puffins, comorants, gulls, seals, and a porpoise on the way back to Mull. There were probably lots of others, which Dan can now pick out in his brand new bird book.




The other excitement that we had due to nature was the appearance of a corncrake in our front yard! It would seem that this bird had a nest in our neighbours' yard and when our front yard grass was cut this week, it appeared one morning. We were lucky to grab a few shots of it and have included them here.


Other than all of that, things here progress well. We are still learning new skills at work (Dan improves at the bar with every shift) and are getting to know our co-workers better. Our friend Jess (from New Zealand) leaves this Saturday for Malaysia with her boyfriend Rob and then they are off to home. She's cool and we have an open invitation to visit whenever we can. She's from Queenstown and Dan thinks he may have eaten in her Aunt's restaurant.


As always, thanks for all of your comments and emails. As you can imagine, they mean a lot to us over here, a little isolated from the rest of the world. Your kind blog comments are always appreciated and welcome.

So long for now,
Dan & Katie

Letter from Iona - 4

Wow, our fourth letter....that means already four weeks!! It seems in so many ways like a very short amount of time and yet we both feel like it has been so long since we saw our beloved Canada!

We hope that you all had a wonderful Canada Day (and Independance Day for our American friends). We celebrated here by wearing our cool sparkly Canada flag pins that Andi gave to Katie for her birthday before we left. We also received a great Canadian postcard from Nanny with a great letter with an update from her. To be nice to the other Canadians here, we made them little Canadian flags and gave them out at work. They were very excited as they didn't have anything!

Things here have been fairly nice this week. Last Wednesday after our update, we scaled the monstrous Dun' I (the local 'mountain'). Its summit is 101 metres tall and it took us all of 15 minutes to climb from top to bottom. We had some help with our climb though as it was soooooo windy that it felt as if we were being pushed to the top. Sadly, because it was too cloudy, and we didn't have any batteries, there were no pictures taken. But we are resolved to climb it again today (we have new batteries) and take some nice landscape shots. The view is incredible. You can see all of the island as well as a substantial amount of Mull, Staffa, Ulva, and possibly even Ireland (although Dan doesn't think so).

On another note, we have seen the illusive Corncrake!(Yes, it does exist!) We figured that as it was so shy, we would have to go on a hunt for it. But sometimes, things are much easier than you think they will be. We had the window open in our room (due to the immense amount of cigarette smoke from our lovely housemates:( and we heard the tell tale 'cck cck' call of the corncrake. Katie popped her head outside and there it was sitting on a log in our neighbour's backyard. Dan says, 'are you sure that is it?' and Katie said....'I don't know, let's just watch it for a second'. As if on cue, it opened it's mouth and said 'cck cck'!! So, not having a camera, we were unable to take a picture, but we're quite certain that we'll see it again, and then we'll be ready!

Yesterday was our 2nd anniversary together. To celebrate, we're going out for dinner tonight (as Katie had to work last night) and today is our day off. As a surprise, Katie gave Dan a great Scottish music book that she found in the shop across from the Restaurant. We've spent much time already trying various tunes out on the recorders (driving our neighbours crazy, I'm sure). More practice is necessary! Perhaps on a beach or a hill somewhere in the peaceful countryside. Then the only things that we can bother are the sheep or cows!

Anyway, off to Dun' I now and the north end of the island.

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