Birthday Boy!

BALLOON!

Birthday Boy!

So today was the reason we are here - a certain someone turned 50!  He doesn't look that much older this morning (he has such a babyface!) and he took it in his stride.  He had a coffee in bed whilst I got the lounge ready with some bunting, all the presents and cake.

He had a happy half hour opening everything and was pretty happy with his haul: 2 bottles of very good whisky, membership to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, tickets to a T20 cricket match for all of us including a stay over at a hotel, some cheese, a lovely Japanese style T-shirt, highland coo and cricket mug (from Tom), and a hot air balloon ride and 2 highland coo glasses and a coaster from me..

Scottish Brekkie

On the boat

We then had a celebratory Scottish breakfast (haggis and Scottish black pudding with scrambled eggs) and had a generally lazy morning whilst waiting for the clouds to clear (cloud level was quite low this morning).  We headed into Ullapool for lunch and went to the seafood shack again - hard not to.  As we thought, the menu had completely changed, so today Tom and I had haddock wraps and Matt had birthday crab claws.  Yumsk again.  

We then headed down to the shore.  We had booked a boat ride for the afternoon - to hopefully see eagles and dolphins.  We went for the sedate version (ie we didn't have to put wet suits on!) mainly because Matt wanted to do his wildlife photography bit and he wouldn't be able to take his expensive camera on the other version and expect it to survive!.

White tailed sea eagle

We booked the trip yesterday, but paid today - they only take payment on the day.  The morning trip had seen eagles - but that was pretty much it.  We didn't mind, but were secretly hoping we would see more.  We got on the boat - somehow we were last in line, even though we were probably waiting at the quay the longest.  We were told there was no room outside and to go inside.  Humpfh.  Not great. Matt's face fell.  I asked if we could go back outside once the boat was in motion and was told no...the guide was having a laugh with us...we had the nice warm inside to put our bags etc, but there was an outside deck area at the front of the boat which was available to us.  Phew - but that was a fraught few moments!

Common dolphin

So we settled in outside, Tom went from shorts and T-shirt to jeans, T-shirt, jumper, coat and was still complaining he was cold - this is what 1.5 weeks of hot weather does to him!  However, the clouds were thinning and by the time we were heading back to port it was bright blue sky and sunshine.  We hurried off down towards the sea but then started heading towards some rocks - we figured there would be a reason why - we weren't disappointed - there was a colony of grey seals lounging around on the rocks.  We got quite close - think we saw about 8 and then we saw a couple in the water too - in fact one turned on its side and waved to us!

Grey seals

We were happy.  More than happy, but then we headed over towards some more rocks and what do you know, there was a family of White Tailed (Sea) Eagles: Mum and Dad and two chicks and when I say chicks, what I really mean is two monster birds who weren't quite as pretty as their parents.  We didn't get as close to these as to the seals so not to scare them, but through binoculars we were able to see them quite clearly.  Mum flew off - but over the hills, but Daddy flew off over the sea and Matt got a photo.  A magnificent sight - 9 foot wing span.  There are only 400 of these birds in the UK - they were extinct in UK but were re-introduced from Norway in the 1980s.  Certainly magnificent and Matt was overjoyed.

Gannet

Next we headed into Little Loch Broom, we were happily chatting away when the intercom came on - apparently we were far off the 'normal' route as they had spotted some dolphins.  We watched closely and lo and behold there we saw some tails and fins playing in the distance.  We got closer and closer until we were in amongst them.  They weren't shy and in fact came to the boat to play in its wake - the boat was a catamaran so they would disappear under it and appear again by the side and vice versa.   Everyone was wowed, they put on a magnificent display and we could have all happily stood there watching for hours - but we were on a timed cruise (2.25 hours) - we still managed a good 40 minutes.  Plenty of opportunities for photos (although you had to be extremely quick) and video (much easier) and then we put our devices away and just enjoyed watching them frolic.  It was truly magical.

One of the Summer Isles

All good things come to an end, and eventually the crew headed the boat back towards base.  They did a quick circuit of the Summer Isles which is where we should have spent the whole trip (very pleased we didn't) these are islands just round the corner from Ullapool - all but one are uninhabited and one used to be owned by an American and had 2 cabins and a pier on it, but he died and no-one has been since, no-one knows who owns it anymore - which is both sad and surprising.

On the way back we saw gannets, shags, and great skewers AND then we saw some porpoises, however, porpoises are very shy and they got out of the way of the boat and disappeared.

Birthday Cake

Dinner!

We arrived back to a hot, sunny Ullapool very very happy customers.  What more could we have asked for?

We headed home to have birthday cake, showers and put some 'fancy' clothes on and then went back to town to find somewhere to eat, we had a stroll on the beach first, drinking in the sunshine and then had a wonderful meal at The Seaforth: Lobster Mac & Cheese for the birthday boy and Langoustines for me and regular Mac & Cheese for Tom.

Then back home for prosecco and cheese and biscuits - except we ended up just having prosecco as the mac and cheese was sitting heavily.  Maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, thank you to everyone for spoiling the boy, think he's had a good day!