21 Arrivals for the Period
Whitefish totalled 2200 boxes from two Banff-registered twin rig trawlers. The Endeavour IV landed a shot of cod, haddock, saithe, ling and monkfish from waters to the west of Shetland and the Aquarius made two landings of mainly haddock, monkfish and saithe from Rockall.
Shellfish was fairly quiet with five visiting prawn trawl landings, two landings from the offshore crabber Our Hazel plus the efforts of the local inshore fleet.
The non-fishing sector was very busy with eleven arrivals for the period. The Marine Harvest wellboat Inter Caledonia made her second call to the village for a crew change, stores, fuel and water. Cruise ships Europa, Viking Sun (twice) and Astor made scheduled port calls, along with a short notice call for the Hebridean Sky who stopped off to explore Isle Martin in the morning. In mostly good weather a total of over 3000 passengers enjoyed tours of the village and returned to their ships clutching bags of gifts for home. Contrary to the popular belief that ‘they all go away on buses’ Ullapool has at best a 37% uptake in half-day excursions ensuring 63% of the passengers have an entire day to spend in the village while the remaining 37% have half a day to sample the delights on their return. In Tall Ship news, the Dutch tall ship Oosterschelde called in for a long weekend before heading to Harris. Wylde Swan returned for four weeks of west coast adventure sailing and Thalassa called in on her way home to Holland. The seven-day Wylde Swan trip from 24th to 31st August was fully booked and 28 lucky passengers enjoyed exploring St Kilda, Callanish, Flannan Isle, Tarbert, Lochboisdale, Dunvegan and the Shiants (pictured) in mixed but largely sunny weather. The crew, who are new to Ullapool, worked extremely hard hoisting sails at every opportunity and the vessel was under full sail at over ten knots on three occasions during the week. The second trip sailed on Tuesday morning in very favourable weather and is expected to make landfall on St Kilda with a full complement of passengers. The next two voyages (Sept 8-12 and Sept 14-17) still have a number of spaces. Please come down to the harbour when the vessel is alongside and make a booking or opportunities such as these will be lost. Ullapool is the only harbour on the west coast with a tall ship available in the summer months for adventure voyages round the coastlines and islands.
All associated with Ullapool Harbour Trust were saddened this week to learn of the passing of Alan Paterson. A Master Mariner to trade Alan came to work for the harbour in 1983 as Port Manager and continued in that role until he retired in 2001. Our thoughts are with his family at this sad time.