Apparently the absolute best time to see the flocks of birds is at the break of day. Now, we are in the north of Scotland in the middle of spring, and the break of day arrives in what I consider time wise to be the middle of the night. Way, way too early for normal people. Still, Brian was eager to look at the birds, and awoke at the crack of dawn to see them. I looked out the window into the early morning light, and sure enough there were birds everywhere. It looked like a scene from the movie “The Birds”. I headed back under the duvet, while Brian dressed up warmly and armed with his camera, he headed out on deck. He took photos, but apparently they do not do justice to what he saw. That’s the problem with taking photos so early in the morning.

Our fellow passengers were thrilled about the bird sightings, and the dining room was really buzzing at breakfast as everyone excitedly described what they had seen. I was distracted by the eggs Benedict on the menu, and wandering whether you could substitute spinach and avocado. You can.

No sooner had the passengers recovered from the excitement of the birds than there was a new excitement. Due to adverse weather conditions, further south there was a change of plan. We would be going to the Isle of Skye and visiting Dunvegan Castle and gardens. My memories of Skye were of being attacked by midges, and I was hoping that it would be too early in the year for them to be out in their millions.

Despite the weather being so bad at our intended destination, we were actually basking in brilliant Scottish sunshine as we passed underneath the controversial Skye Bridge. I am not sure whether the islanders are now grateful or not for the building of the bridge which opened in 1995. I have fond memories of taking the train to the Kyle of Lochalsh, staying overnight at the Lochalsh Hotel, and taking the ferry to the island the next morning, and then a coach across the island. Gone is the need for a ferry to get over the sea to Skye. The bridge is actually quite beautiful, and we easily sailed underneath it. The advantage of a small ship. It’s not like sailing on Queen Mary 2 under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge when you know she will get through unscathed, but it always looks like a close thing.

We spent the day cruising up the coast of the Isle of Skye, and then anchored in Loch Dunvegan close to Dunvegan Castle, the home of the chief of Clan MacLeod.

The castle looks very imposing perched high above the bay. It is not a pretty castle, but looks well-built to fend off potential invaders. Since the 13^th century various clan Chiefs have added to and modified the castle, but there have been no battles fought there for quite some time.

We took a tender from the ship to a jetty near the castle, and walked up the hill to the entrance, which just did not seem welcoming at all.

Instead of there being a grand lobby on entering the castle, there is a staircase right there in front of the front door, and a crazed cow (?) looking down on you. We are certainly not in Downton Abbey.

However, the public rooms are at the top of the stairs, and really do look quite grand. However, I was surprised by the lack of fireplaces. I imagine it must have been quite cold and damp here in the winter (and Scottish summer) before they put the central heating in.

There is a terrace at the back of the castle, where they still have the cannons to ward off potential invaders.

We had a great view of our ship from there,

and I was able to get Brian to take a photo that confirmed my fears – open lifeboats just like on QE2.

Still the little tenders that they store at the front of the ship, and they use to ferry us back and forth from the ship do have a bit of cover, so given the choice I would go with one of those, but it might be more difficult to row it if the need be.

After touring the castle, we headed off to see the gardens. It was too early in the year for the flowers to be in full bloom, but the gardens were very well laid out, and we spent hours wondering around and enjoying them. And it was too early in the year and too early in the day to be attacked by midges.

We walked down the hill to the pier, and said goodbye to the castle.

You can also take a small boat to see a nearby seal colony, but we realized that we had left it too late to do this, and so had to take the tender back to the ship.

From the tender we were able to take some more photos of the ship,

and took a photo of our cabin. It’s the one with 3 medium sized windows on the deck below the promenade deck, next to 3 larger windows of the dining room.

While getting dressed for dinner we saw a large waterfall, from our cabin

but by the time we went out on deck to see it, we were way past it. We did, however, get to see our one and only sunset so far for the trip.

We anchored overnight near to a sea eagles nest, it was hard to see with the naked eye, but in the nest there were 2 eaglets being closely monitored by their parents. Maybe the parents were Norwegian and part of the scheme to reintroduce sea eagles to the UK. They certainly seemed to have settled in well, and were contributing to the growing Scottish sea eagle population.