2025 Oct. 16; Scenic cruising and the Isle of Raasay, Scotland.

Today we sail from our anchorage at Harris down the Sound of Raasay to Raasay itself

Just after 07.00 the engines were started, the anchor went up and the good ship Hebridean Princess sailed south from the anchorage for a morning of sightseeing in the Sound of Raasay. (Pronounced Ra-siee). Which is located between the Isle of Sky and the Scottish Mainland. We fell straight asleep again and thus skipped breakfast. A sign of the good service here on board, is that a very concerned waitress popped up in the bar later on asking if we were ok without breakfast.

The Card room. Four seats and one table. I hope for shipboard management that they never have more than 4 bridge players otherwise there will be mayhem.

Lesley went to the lounge for the sightseeing and I retreated to the “card room” to write my daily blog of yesterday. WiFi on board is very good, good enough for real time streaming but very marginal in our cabin down in the dungeons. All the seats on board are for reclining in comfort so the card room table (only one in an alcove in the corrdor on Deck 2) is about the only place one can sit upright.

As we have an inside cabin, our t.v. has to tell us what goes on outside. This is the scene we saw when we woke up this morning. Flat calm seas, the ship at anchor (with the compulsory anchor ball up) and nicely overcast so no fog.

In the mean time we sailed down this passage between the Isle of Skye called the Sound of Raasay, with the eventual objective of anchoring in the harbour of Raasay, under the eye of the House / Hotel of Raasay and the distillery of Raasay. As you can see it is “Raasay” all over the place.  This area is heaven for those interested in wildlife as there is hardly any vegetation so deer, sheep. goats and birdies are all clearly visible. Our naturalist Bryan Hogg was on and off the bridge to make announcements, whenever there was something to be seen.

One of the many small hamlets on the various islands.

On occasion we saw small villages and interspersed with in the middle of nowhere a farm. Those people must be very lonely in the winter, with the nearest neighbour living over the montain ridge behind the snow drifts.  Better to sit on a nice little cruise ship with a glass of wine in hand.

The “Old Man of Storr”, as seen on a stock photo. We were saling by down below.

The scenery is very bare with some farming on the lower slopes of the barren hills. The best known port in this area is Portree and opposite is a large rock formation known as the “Old Man of Storr”. Storr in old norse means “great man”. It is part of a mountain ridge called the Trotternish Ridge and its claim to fame is being the longest landslip in Great Britain. The pinnacle itself was formed by an ancient landslide and is a remnant of a 2.8 billion-year-old volcanic plug. It is one of the most photographed rock formations in Scotland.

Cutting through the islands is very scenic with the wildlife (do we look at them, or do they look at us ???) coming quite close.

From there we sailed through the passage between Rona and Raasay and then dropped anchor outside the metropolis of Raasay, main town of the island and the location where the ferry comes in. According to the local information this is one of the easiest accesible “real islands” e.g. the best ferry connection, so there is a higher number of tourists coming in for walking and related. As a result the local manor “Raasay House Hotel” is now a successful hotel where many people stay to enjoy the surrounding nature.

Raasay House Hotel. Looked very pleasant and the coffee was very good.

The two small ships tenders ran a shuttle service to a Marina pier next to the ferry ramp  and then one could go for a long walk with naturalist Bryan Hogg  (he has a channel on U-tube called Hoggblog) or go up to the hotel and the distillery next door.  The Chief Purser had made arrangements with the Hotel that everybody could pop in for a coffee or tea and most guests took advantage of that.  We walked up to the distillery and then walked out again as a bottle of Raasay whisky was anywhere between 65 and 95 pounds.  Still there was interest, even for those prices, as a large group of men was congregating around the tasting bar, looking very serious but also very happy.

The view from the hotel grounds. The mv Hebridean Princess at anchor in the bay and the ships purser to the right, busy with taking a photo of a local cow.

Thus the cheaper alternative was a cup of coffee in the bar of the Raasay hotel which was equally well appreciated. Behind the hotel was a ruined chapel with some graves still visible (last interment around 1976) and from there we went back to the ship.

The ship’s bar in the main lounge. It is small but because there is always one person in attendance (and during cocktail hours 2) it works  very well. All drinks are included in the fare and the quality of the drinks is very good. All premium labels and the same goes for the diningroom where the wines are of a very good standard.

It is important to be present at cocktail time as during this cruise we have each night as guest speaker Captain Heaton, to tell us first where we are NOT going and then to tell us were we ARE going.  For the guests who know the area, and we have some on board who have done 10 or 14 cruises (the top scorer seems to have around 85 according to the crew), it is a sort of Who-dun-it to see if they have guessed right. So tonight we will anchor & then dock at the port of Lewis, called Talbert, for a visit to (guess it) another distillery and then shift to the port of Stornoway. Due to the size of the Hebridean Princess we can dock downtown and from there the company has laid on an excursion bus to a small old Black House village.

Weather for tomorrow, Same as today. Overcast with little wind and temperatures around 12oC / 54oF.