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