April 26th 2010

Hello.
In case you haven't heard yet over £1000 was raised for the RNLI at Donald's party, and in case you hadn't twigged he was actually only (ONLY haha!!) 50. Congratulations Big Dan on both counts.
There haven't been an awful lot of visitors around but that's to be expected from now till about the middle of May. However we did have a lovely day today with a photo shoot for the autumn Boden catalogue. It was a bit windy early on so we just stayed in Slapin and they did the shoot there. They certainly took plenty of photos so hopefully the Misty Isle will appear somewhere in the catalogue. They wanted a dog for the shoot so we offered Eachann but very wisely they opted for Seonaid and Iain's wee Jack Russell Skye instead. They all seemed happy with the days work, in fact so happy they started dancing on the shore. Really nice crew to work with and we hope to get the chance to do it again sometime.
It may be some time till the next blog thing as Stuart is whisking the laptop( or toplap as Seumas calls it) of to laptop casualty as he reckons it doesn't work properly and I know how these things always end up more complicated than you think.
Anyway, it's been nice and thanks for calling by.
Anne

April 18th 2010

Hello again.
Firstly Many Happy Returns to Donald on reaching the big 60...I knew you would overtake me and reach it before me. I don't know yet how much was raised for the Lifeboats but I will let you know when I find out. Sorry there's no pictures of the birthday boy here but my scanner isn't working and all the best ones are locked up in my old computer but I will post some as soon as I can. Try the link below for a photo but I don't know if it will work.

It's been a pretty busy week here in Elgol . The Misty Isle was very busy for the first few days but then it quietened down as people headed home at the end of their holidays. I hope not too many of you got stranded with the 'no fly' zone. At the start of the week we had a large singing group who entertained everyone on the boat and a group of international travel agents( or perhaps an international group of travel agents?) which can't be a bad thing,just a pity they didn't sail with the singers and they could go home and promote our musical cruises.
We had the painters in at the start of the week too so thank you Glenda for doing the high bits and Audrey for your fab ehm,... paint tray holding.The place looks really smart now with a lick of paint and the new pictures up.You should come and see it...and while you're here why not take a trip on the Misty! Heather was on biscuit duty a couple of times this week as Calum was busy with school and there's not much call for chimney sweeps these days.
Not much new on the wildlife front. We had seen our first basking shark by this time last year but the weather was a lot warmer.
We had a lovely couple on the boat who have been thinking of doing the trip for quite some time. They emailed us afterwards so I'll just put their comments on as I know Stuart is very busy this weekend so won't have the time to add them to the usual page on the web site.

What a pity we waited all those years before taking a trip on the Misty Isle! We had been promising ourselves that we would do it "one day". It has taken over thirty years for that day to come around. We know that when God made time, he made plenty of it; but we think we took this too literally. Thank you for a fantastic day. The atmosphere on Misty Isle was friendly, welcoming and relaxing - a lovely "family" feeling, and special thanks to the tiny distributor of biscuits! It was not just the fantastic scenery that made our day. It was the wonderful family Mackinnon. Thank you.

Bob(Snr) & Jackie

How nice is that?
See you next week.
Anne

http://www.trawlerphotos.co.uk/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=74767&ppuser=3737

Firstly well done to Melanie and the team for raising the fantastic sum of £400 for Marie Curie and Highland Hospice with their soup and homebaking afternoon last week.


What a fabulous couple of days we have had here. It's been just like summer and apparently the temperature today touched 20 degrees.
The last few days out on the Misty Isle have been wonderful with a couple of porpoise sightings and plenty of seals,oyster catchers and eider ducks. Also the deer have been seen on most days over near the memorial hut and they look like they will be very glad of the green shoots brought on by this warm weather.
We will miss having the children about down at the shore as the school goes back tomorrow. Never mind guys, it's not too long till the long summer holidays.
The forecast for the week is very good with a high settled over us so if you are still on holiday come on over to Elgol for a trip on the Misty Isle to Coruisk.
See you.
Anne

Tomorrow, Friday, there will be an afternoon of soup and fabulous homebaking in Elgol Village Hall between 1pm and 3pm with all proceeds going to Marie Curie Cancer Care and Highland Hospice. Please try and make it along and help support these great causes and remember, Elgol homebaking is world famous for a very good reason!!!

What a perfect start to the season. Blue sky,warm sunshine,seals and some of Hermione's lentil soup. I think Stuart has some video but here are a couple of photos from Seumas.