Stornoway, Scotland

Having averaged 7.28 knots (nautical miles per hour), we arrived in the Outer Hebrides at 12:30 p.m. today and docked right by the town's waterfront. Shortly, we will be going out to dinner somewhere near here. Enis and Shalako scouted around town for a couple of hours and picked up tourist information and ideas for things to do while we are here. 

On the dock at Stornoway

I started working on putting things such as books and clothing that had been thrown across the boat back into their places. Since the shelves were already emptied of many things, I used the opportunity to take all the stuff from each shelf in the boat and clean the surfaces. The small task of tidying up turned into a autumn cleaning job that took a few hours, but I am happy that the saloon, the galley, the master cabin and the bathroom are thoroughly scrubbed and vacuumed. After doing the work down below, I moved up to the pilot house and cockpit and cleaned up crumbs, drops from sloshing drinks and general dirt there. The living spaces in the boat are about as clean as they get.

Peter focused on getting the boat hooked up to electricity on the dock. Why are there so many different configurations in the world? After trying various things, he decided to find the harbor master for advise. This man noticed that the main problem was an error at the outlet. He sent an harbor-employed electrician to check it out. Apparently, it will have to wait for service until tomorrow morning, but we can use it now. This means HEAT!

The sunshine that we appreciated during most of the passage from Iceland has gone away and blue-gray clouds loom over us. As the day approaches sunset, the temperature outside is 52° F (11°C), but wind gusts up to 16 mph are making it feel more like 46°F (7.7°C). We still need to bundle up, but we can probably skip one layer.

Having arrived in Scotland, we all have the sense that the journey is near its end. It is bittersweet because we have had so many great times together, seen natural wonders that we had never encountered before, and learned about the history of this part of the world and the current cultures. We wouldn't have missed it, but we also feel that, even though there is much we did not see, we are done cruising in the far north of the Atlantic Ocean.