Lewis and Harris, Scotland

Unfortunately, I have once again fallen behind in making blog posts. A week ago, I posted that we had arrived in Stornoway from Iceland. We finally left last night! Yesterday morning, a SSE wind was howling in the harbor at 25 mph with gusts up to 39 mph. The boat was rocking at the dock and the lines were strained. The wind abated in the early afternoon. Nonetheless, it had been blowing for days, so we expected the seas to be high. Fortunately, the sea has been calm as we make our way south en route to Glasgow.

Now it is time to relate what we did while docked in Stornoway. We enjoyed the town and spent one day touring Lewis and Harris island by car. Here is the day-by-day tale.

Mantra docked along Stornoway's waterfront

Wooden sculpture of a Herring Girl

Monday, September 22

We settled in and tidied up the boat at the dock in Stornoway. I did a fairly thorough cleaning and Peter took care of clearing in to Scotland. Enis and Shalako went to explore and came back with maps and information on the Hebrides International Film Festival, which was set to begin on Wednesday. That evening, we all went to find a restaurant for dinner, but some were closed and some had a wait of an hour, so we ended up buying take-out from a fish and chips shop which was running low on just about everything. We took our food back to the boat to eat and finished up the day with a card game. 

Tuesday, September 23

We are tied up on the waterfront right by the main part of this town, which is the largest in the Outer Hebrides, with a population around 7,000. The town, situated on a sheltered natural harbor, was founded by Norsemen in the early 9th century. Various Scottish clans, including MacNicol and MacLeod, had control of the entire island until the beginning of the 17th century, when, after conflicts with mainland Scots, James VI, King of Scotland, transferred the land to the MacKenzies of Seaforth in 1610.

In 1844, the MacKenzies sold Stornoway and the entire island to Sir James Matheson, a Scottish opium trader. With his partner William Jardine, he lobbied British Parliament to force the Qing government of China to open trade so they could expand their opium empire. Their lobbying efforts led to the First Opium War. This led to the Treaty of Nanking, which allowed Jardine Matheson to expand from Canton to Hong Kong and mainland China. Their company still exists as Jardine Matheson Holdings.

In 1918, Matheson's great-nephew sold the island to William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, an English industrialist who joined his father's wholesale business at a young age and went on to build a substantial business empire based on soap manufacturing, including well-known brands such as Lux and Lifebuoy. With his brother James, he established Lever Brothers, which is now part of the British multinational corporation Unilever. However, William Lever was not himself financially successful and his plans for developing the island did not come to fruition. Lord Leverhulme gifted his 600-acre estate in Stornoway to the local people, and the Trust now owns and operates Lews Castle.

Lews Castle

On Tuesday afternoon, we walked across the pedestrian bridge at the top of the harbor to the west side and entered the estate. Built in the years 1844-51, Lews Castle, which had fallen into a derelict state, has been restored by the Trust and now operates as a hotel. Only the first floor is open to the public during the day. At first, it seemed as if we would only be able to walk down the long hallway with its blue and gold star-filled ceiling, as all the doors were closed. I had forgotten that, unlike Americans, the British keep doors to hallways shut. We opened the first door and entered the ballroom.

Corridor on the ground floor of Lews Castle

Sherri at the grand piano in the ballrom

Sherri and Peter dancing in the ballroom

This room is now used for dinners, wedding receptions and other special occasions, and a young man was in the process of putting away chairs and tables. However, he was more than happy to talk to us about the room and how it was expanded as well as the former owners and their eccentricities. We could not have had a better tour guide. 

Opening doors as we passed along the hallway, we discovered the former library, with brightly painted yellow walls, and the dining room, richly fabricated in dark wood, deep red wall paper with a blue and gold coffered ceiling. Luckily for us, the young man appeared in each of these rooms while we were there and provided us with more fascinating history. 

The dining room in the castle

In addition to building the castle, Matheson had the grounds transformed from rough grazing land into extensive woodlands and private gardens. This involved the clearance of tenants and the re-routing of public roads, which did not endear the new proprietor to the local population. His wife, Lady Mary Jane Matheson, loathed the local people and had trees planted to obscure the view of the town, which she deemed to be unsightly. 

Ironically, the British government recognized Matheson for assisting 1,771 islanders to emigrate even though they were forced to leave because he expelled them from the land. This removal of people was not isolated. Landlords across Scotland evicted significant numbers of tenants in the Highlands and the Islands in two phases from 1750 to 1860. In the first phase, landlords sought to increase their income by the enclosure of open fields which had been used for shared grazing. Local farmers had to pay high rent and were reduced in social status from independent farmers to crofters, or tenant farmers. The second phase involved overcrowded crofting communities caused by the first phase of clearances. People in these communities did not have enough resources to support themselves. The eviction of tenants unable to pay went against dùthchas, the principle that had existed since the early Middle Ages that clan members had an inalienable right to rent land in the clan territory. Some landowners displayed complete lack of concern for evicted tenants, so Matheson's "assistance" in emigration through purchase of passage, mostly to Canada, for the very people he had displaced, was considered by some (though not the crofters) as benevolent. 

In addition to the interior of the castle, we also walked through the grounds, including the sunken garden, which, at this time of year, has very little plants in bloom, and the woodlands, where chainsaw sculptures of animals delighted us. The gardener's cottage, which is still occupied by the chief gardener of the estate, is located near the harbor and has many plants in bloom as well as whimsical features. The boys posed for photos at reproductions of soap advertisements for Lifebuoy Soap and Pears' Soap, a rival which the Lever Brothers became major shareholders of in 1914.

Woodlands on the estate

Sherri in the sunken garden

Mouse on a mushroom

Owl

The gardener's cottage

Shalako and Peter advertising Pears' Soap

Enis had to return to the boat to work after our woodland amble, but Peter, Shalako and I visited the Museum nan Eilean (Museum of the Island). There we learned about current life on the island, emigration, and the history of settlement. Its most important exhibit is 6 of the Lewis Chessman from a hoard of 12th century objects made from walrus ivory and whale teeth, including 78 chess pieces. These were found in sand dunes of Uig Bay on the island in 1831. Believed to have been made by five different craftsmen in a workshop in Trondheim, Norway, most are now at the British Museum in London. These chessmen include pieces that are no longer used in the game, particularly four specialized "warders" who are biting their shields, identified as berserkers of the Norse sagas.

The six Lewis Chessman on display

That evening, the four of us went to a nearby restaurant, which had been too busy the previous night. The CS-1 Cafe had great ambience and service and delicious food, including a seafood platter appetizer.

Food at CS-1 Cafe

Wednesday, September 24

The weather forecast was not favorable for leaving Stornoway soon, and Shalako's wife Patty was anxious for him to get home. He began looking into ways to travel from Lewis Harris as we could not predict an arrival date for Glasgow. Enis was also talking with his brother and mother in Croatia about their meeting him perhaps within a few days in Glasgow for a quick Scottish mainland vacation together. And Enis had to work at this job.

Peter and I decided to take advantage of the film festival taking place in the Outer Hebrides and went to An Lanntair, the arts center that includes a cinema, art gallery and cafe. We watched a short film called My Name Is Anik, about a Scottish girl visiting her grandmother in Turkey with the specific intent of learning Kurdish, a language that had been surpressed by the Turkish government. It was followed by a arts film from Iceland called When the Light Breaks involving a young woman and her friends who experience a devastating loss of life. The cinematography was fantastic, and the movie was intensely expressive of love and grief. We took a break afterwards outside, with Peter going to talk to the harbormaster while I walked around the immediate vicinity, wandering into the Stornoway Town Hall, where craftspeople were selling various items in the main hall. I had a nice conversation with one of them but did not buy anything. 

Stornoway Town Hall

Craft fair in Town Hall

After lunch at the arts center's cafe--delicious bowls of carrot coriander soup--we watched another short and then a feature film, Let Me Live. The short, vividly filmed, was about a big wave surfer from Cornwall, Tom Lowe. The videography of him riding inside big waves was stunning. The feature film was a documentary entitled Talk About Lonely, which addresses chronic loneliness as a social phenomenon in terms of its historical, economic, political, technological and personal aspects. Featuring interviews with experts and others who have studied loneliness, it provided a comprehensive and not entirely bleak overview of the topic.

Between films, Peter and I looked at the works of three artists on display in the gallery of An Lanntair. There were four tondos by one artist depicting imagined scenes of heaven and hell in a collage format. Four sculptures were constructed of clothes hangers. Large torsos of a man and of a woman sat opposite each other, and nearby was a leopard. We were fascinated by the creation of texture and depth in these. The final artist showcased there had created sculptures and pseudo-paintings using colorful foil and foiled candy wrappers, imitating famous works of art. These were captivating.

Two of the tondos and a female torso from clothes hangers

Foil artwork

Still life using foil as a medium

Detail of the still life

An Lanntair gallery

By the time Peter and I had arrived back at the boat, Shalako had booked flights from Glasgow to Sacramento for Friday but not a way to get to Glasgow. This proved challenging; he knew there were flights from Stornoway to Glasgow, but he had not anticipated that they would be sold out over the next few days. Enis' tentative plan to get to Glasgow via ferry, bus and train--with Shalako intending to use this way to get there also--had been shelved because his brother could not get to Glasgow in a few days. Shalako attempted to change his itinerary to Saturday, spending about half an hour on the phone, with no success. By late afternoon, the only option was to catch the ferry leaving at 7 a.m. the next morning and then continue by land, arriving in Glasgow in the late afternoon. Booking three separate modes of transportation was also daunting, but he did it with Enis' help, and I assisted him in booking a hotel near George's Square.

After dinner, Enis, Peter and I abandoned him on board to pack and went to the golf club by the castle grounds for a ceileigh at 7:30. Advertised as dancing, we had expected to be entertained. We had not expected for the event to be a local weekly dance class in which we were expected to participate! Enis wanted to escape (and probably Peter too), but everyone was very welcoming, and we joined in with various partners for several different dances, which to me seemed similar to square dancing in America. We managed not to make total fools of ourselves and enjoyed the lively, casual activity.

Peter at the ceileigh

Enis participating in a dance

By the time we returned to Mantra, Shalako had finished packing and was looking a little less frazzled than he was in the afternoon. He was tired and had to be a the ferry terminal by 6 a.m., but we persuaded him to play one last game of Take5 before going to bed. He left the next morning without any of us seeing him go.

Thursday, September 25

At 9:30 in the morning, we picked up a rental car at a local agency and headed south. Our first stop was in South Harris at Seilebost, where the water is a shade of tropical green-blue. The fine sand is white, and sand dunes covered in native grasses undulate above the beach. This rare, fertile coastal grassland habitat, called machair, is unique to the exposed west coasts of Scotland and Ireland, particularly the Outer Hebrides. The sea deposits shell sand and powerful westerly winds spread this inland. The shell-rich sand provides the necessary lime content for the alkaline, fertile grasslands. The level of biodiversity is high. Human activity has played an important role in the creation of machair. As early as 6000 BC, farmers deposited seaweed on the dunes to provide a protective cover and add nutrients. The grass is kept short by cattle and sheep, and their trampling adds texture, with tussocks forming that are used by several species of birds. This environmental aspect is fascinating, but the views themselves are stunning in themselves and can be enjoyed with no explanation.

Peter and Ennis walking to the beach through the mochair

The windswept beach with sunshine highlighting a distant dune

Seilebost with a receding tide

The wind, as usual, was blowing the sand. This movement as well as the ebbing tide created remarkable patterns. Sunlight occasionally filtered through the dense gray clouds, highlighting a dune or section of sea. Black-faced sheep, the most common breed of sheep in the UK, grazed the machair.

Sand aloft in the wind

Patterns in the sand

Black-faced sheep graving in the mochair

After a walk on the beach and on the paths, we stopped at the gift shop by the parking lot, where various items hand-carved from the local gneiss were displayed. These were unique and we could not resist making a purchase.

Our next stop was St. Clement's Church on the southern tip of Harris near Rodal. It was built in the early 16th century for the chiefs of the MacLeods of Harris and dedicated to Pope Clement. Constructed of local Lewisian gneiss and black crystaline metagabbro, it has a cruciform ground plan and a square tower at the west end. In 1528, Alasdair Crotach MacLeod, the eighth chief of the clan, prepared for himself a wall tomb on the south side of the choir, crowned by an arch and embellished with Biblical carvings. The ninth chief, William, had his grave prepared in the south wall of the nave in 1539. In the south transept, there is a third grave believed to belong to John MacLeod, the tenth chief. The surrounding cemetery contains a number of MacLeod tombs. 

Black-faced sheep above the harbor of St. Clement's Church

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Tomb of Alasdair Crotach MacLeod

Carved figures on the tower wall

St. Clement's Church and graveyard

It was time for lunch, so we stopped at the nearby Isle of Harris Brewery in Leverburgh, formerly Obbe. The small village was renamed and developed by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, who had purchased the island in 1918. He built housing, roads, and a pier for processing and shipping fish as well as other infrastructure, intending to revive the fishing industries and create a model community. Due to financial setbacks, the project did not succeed. 

Enis and Peter checking weather apps while waiting for our meals

Our lunch was delicious. After the meal, we continued sight-seeing. We stopped at the same place overlooking Seilebost two and a half hours after our first visit to see the difference in the shoreline as the tide ebbed.

Seilebost with a lower tide

We made it in time (with a half hour to spare!) to see the interior of the buildings at Gearannan Blackhouse Village on the west coast of Lewis and talk with the docents. There are nine restored traditional thatched cottages, some of them used as residences until 1974. They were the last group of blackhouses to be inhabited in the Western Isles of Scotland. There was no electricity until 1952, and piped water was not available until the 1960's. Windows were not installed in this village until 1964. There is debate about the name blackhouse. A woman at Gearannan told us the name derived from the darkness of the interior. Another explanation is that, with no chimney for smoke to escape, the smoke made its way through the thatched roof, leading to soot blackening on the inside. Two of the blackhouses are open to the public and the others are now holiday accommodations. The largest of the houses consisted of two rooms for family living. The floors sloped dramatically to allow for water from seepage to flow out. Connected by a small hallway was the cowshed, which, in addition to having displays of traditional crofting agricultural implements has a Harris tweed loom for hand weaving, which a man explained to us. It is a very complicated machine. 

Corner of the bedroom in the restored blackhouse

Main room of a restored blackhouse

Passageway between the living quarters and the cowshed

Cowshed

Harris tweed loom housed in the cowshed

Enis and Peter walking by the blackhouses

After looking around the village, we took a short hike across the shore of the bay, covered in large, sea-tumbled, smooth round rocks. Past the cobble beach, we walked among the grasses and exposed rocks of the low cliffs. Large chunks of quartz glistened in the late afternoon light.

The small bay by the blackhouse village

Large stones on the beach

Quartz embedded in the gneiss

Our next stop was Dun Carloway, a remarkably well preserved broch. A broch is a uniquely Scottish circular drystone tower from the Iron Age, known for its double-walled construction, internal passages and curving stairwells. The home of tribal leaders and defensive structures, they were built between 400 BC and 100 AD. At Dun Carloway, parts of the old east wall still reach to 9 meters (30 feet) tall. 

View from Dun Carloway

Ruins of Dun Carloway

Peter in a passageway

Scotch heather by Dun Carloway

As the sun was setting, we reached the Standing Stones of Callanish (of Calanais) as few miles away. Arranged in a cruciform pattern with a central stone circle, the stones were erected in the late Neolithic era, during the Bronze Age. Evidence suggests that Callanish and other nearby monuments were used for prehistoric religious activity for at least 1,500 years. The stones were put in place around 2750 BC, pre-dating Stonehenge in England. 

The central circle consists of 13 stones with a monolith in the middle. Five rows of standing stones connect to the circle, with two of them running parallel to form an 18.2 meter (60 foot) avenue to the north-northeast. All the stones are local Lewisian gneiss. Unlike Stonehenge, which, because of too many tourists, is now fenced off, the Callanish Stones are open for roaming among them.

Detail of a Callanish Stone

Callanish Stones with two rows of standing stones forming an avenue to the inner circle

Callanish Stones

We arrived back at the dock and Mantra after sunset, having seen many things in one day.

Friday, September 26

This was a laid-back day for us in Stornoway. Before returning the car, Peter and I made a quick shopping trip to Tesco, the first major supermarket we have been to in months. I did three loads of laundry, and there was enough sunshine and wind for the first two loads to dry thoroughly. Enis worked at his job and Peter puttered around as is his wont. Around noon, I went out shopping for gifts for my family. I found a great little shop called Tweedtastic for hand-made woolen items.

At 3 p.m., Peter and I were at An Lanntair to see an odd short film called Headland made in Dungeness, England, with scenes of the area and voice-overs about the bygone fishing life; the volunteer life saving efforts over the years; and the English Channel crossings, rescues and landings of migrants seeking safety. Following that was the film we went to see, North Sea, Nature Untamed, a full-length documentary about the biodiversity there and the impact on biodiversity of overfishing, wind farms, dikes in the Netherlands, and other human activity. With gorgeous video scenes of the marine life in the North Sea, the filmmaker, Mark Verkerk, illustrates the complex ecosystem and offers a hopeful vision of sustainable conservation practices. Even without the messaging, the film is more than worthwhile just for its amazing visual revelations about the lives of algae, plants and animals in this marine environment.

Afterwards, we went to another venue to see a short film entitled The Last of the Hand Weavers. We were disappointed in this depiction of the life of one 84-year-old man in Donegal, Ireland, because, one, it was not about the weaving in the Outer Hebrides, and, two, it was about the man himself and did not describe or explain the weaving process, in which we were interested. (In retrospect, we should have stayed at the first venue, where the filmmaker was available for Q & A.)

We spent considerable time debating when to leave Stornoway and which route to take. The currents and the winds here are new to us, and the unfamiliarity made Peter nervous. Finally, it was agreed that we would leave the next afternoon after the howling wind ceased.

Mantra on the dock in Stornoway

Saturday, September 27, 2025

We woke up to strong winds, cool temperatures (nothing new) and sunshine. By noon, the wind had lessened considerably. I spent most of the day working on this blog post while Peter read books and charts and considered routing. Enis continued to work away at his job. By 5 p.m., we were on deck, bundled up and ready to go. Then we decided to wait until later so that we would arrive in time to use the current to our advantage further south, so we all went down below for hot chocolate. By then, the water was like glass and shades of pink tinged the clouds above. 

Before ending this narrative about Stornoway, I want to mention two things. First, the sinks in the UK. Enis was surprised to find that the hot and cold water taps are separate just as I was when I first visited. "What's with the sinks?" he asked Peter, complaining that they were so far apart that it was impossible to have warm water for hand washing. Peter explained that one is supposed to put in the stopper and mix the water in the basin. This seems to make perfect sense to him. Those of us from the rest of the world can only shake our heads and wonder why this old set-up has not been superseded by the much more practical of mixed water from one tap.

This does not make sense in current times

Secondly, most people may not be aware that Donald Trump's mother was born in Lewis and immigrated to the United States when she was 18. English was her second language. She participated in chain migration, the movement of people to a particular destination where earlier migrants from the same origin had already established themselves. Mary Anne MacLeod was following several siblings who had already immigrated to New York City. Her son, the current ignoble President of the United States Donald Trump, has consistently and adamantly opposed chain migration, seeking to replace it with a merit-based system focused on skills and potential for economic contributions. In our conversations with local people, it became clear that Trump is not well-regarded in the region.

Typical sign in a storefront

We finally set off at 9:30 p.m. Peter and Enis took the first watches. Peter reported clear skies with an abundance of stars much of the time and the accompaniment of a large pod of dolphins for more than half an hour, creating beautiful displays of bioluminescence. 

Sunday, September 28, 2026

I took watch at 6 a.m. and watched the sunrise. In the early morning light, steep hillsides covered in heather glowed above the shorelines on either side of Mantra. 

Sunrise over the mainland of Scotland

Heather on the hillsides

It is a sunny but cold day, and we are enjoying the scenery and wishing we had more time to stop in lovely anchorages. We were early for the current to begin running south through Kyle Rhea, the strait that connects Loch Alsh in the north to the Sound of Sleat in the southwest, separating the Isle of Skye from the Inverness-shire of the mainland. Therefore, we went to the east end of Loch Alsh to see Eilean Donan Castle from the water. Situated on a small tidal island, the original castle was built in the thirteenth century and became the stronghold of the Clan Mackenzie and their allies, the Clan MacRae. In response to the Mackenzies' involvement in the Jacobite rebellions early in the 18th century, government ships destroyed the castle in 1719. In the 1930s, the present castle was reconstructed from the original plans by John MacRae-Gilstrap, who claimed chiefship of the MacRae clan. (His daughter is the current chief.)

Eilean Donan Castle

Peter at the helm by Eilean Donan Castle

We will continue sailing (as we can) and motoring until this evening, when we will anchor for the night at Sanna Bay. In the morning, we will journey further south.