As people who use ferries a reasonable amount up here, it’s always interesting to get the opportunity to travel either on a different vessel, or on a different route, and yesterday’s little adventure ticked both those boxes. The ongoing situation with Caledonian MacBrayne (“CalMac”) and their issues with various boats means that currently the M.V. Loch Portain which usually plies to and fro across the Sound of Harris is off for a lengthy repair, and with no viable replacement crossings of the Sound are suspended and vehicles are being carried between the northern and southern part of the island chain via crossings from Lochmaddy to Tarbert, using one of the newest vessels in the fleet, M.V. Glen Sannox.
We had originally hoped to do a crossing that would give us a couple of hours to have a potter round Tarbert, which is nice little place, but for various reasons which nobody quite seems to understand that option was cancelled so instead we opted for a straight out and back. This is a route which doesn’t happen as standard very often so it was too good an opportunity to miss, it’s rare to see the eastern side of the Islands like this!
With mixed weather - very windy throughout, but varying from bright sunshine to sudden short sharp showers and one torrential downpour we split our time between exploring the inside of the boat and spending time on deck. The outside space on Glen Sannox is something which we felt actually let her down a bit - it is entirely stern and side facing, there is effectively no view forward at all, and that felt a bit strange. There are plenty of places to shelter from even the strong winds we had though which is always a bonus, and a brilliant little completely covered seating area - just great if you want to be outside but not at the mercy of the elements.
Inside everything is very light and spacious feeling - with glass everywhere including forming the walls around the stairwells which is a lovely touch. The jewel in the crown is probably the bow observation lounge with its expanse of windows - we took the opportunity at Tarbert to locate ourselves there as the weather was great at the stage, and we enjoyed the departure from that excellent viewpoint!
There were also masses of smaller lounges/seating areas scattered around too - some pet friendly and some not - it was nice to see that those travelling with dogs (or indeed cats - there was one on our outward sailing!) had a choice of spots to sit.
The car deck feels positively cavernous without the central divide that most of the older “major units” have - and this is only half of it - look carefully and you can see a mezzanine or “hoistable” deck stowed away above. This expands the capacity to 133 cars when required.
Elsewhere the open luggage racks are a colourful feature adding a cheerful splash of personality to the vessel - the stairs/lifts to the car deck are colour coded too (4 staircases and an impressive three lifts) making it easier to find your way back to the right part of the car deck on disembarking.
In spite of the weather we had some lovely views - the Scalpay Bridge above, and Tarbert itself…
…and it was fascinating to see this glimpse into the future of Calmac as well - new major units (the biggest vessels on the fleet) haven’t come along often for a good while now - the last prior to the current set where Loch Seaforth and Finlaggan as far as I can think and they are both over 10 years old now!
Arriving back at Lochmaddy the wind was definitely causing some issues with getting the vessel alongside the pier, indeed you can see why in some places this level of breeze (gusts exceeding 40mph) simply means that sailings can’t happen. Thankfully Lochmaddy is far more forgiving - particularly when the wind is from the west as it was yesterday, and after a bit of careful manoeuvring we were ready to disembark, although the gangway is currently out of operation so us foot passengers had to wait for vehicles to clear the car deck before leaving.
This trip cost us just £9.80 each - with well over 3 hours of sailing time and some fabulous views it felt like a complete bargain. Calmac don’t mind people doing these little “cruise” style trips just for fun at all - indeed they applied “joined up thinking” and checked us in for the return without us actually needing to get off at Tarbert at all - although we only discovered that when yes, we got off! It would have been better to have had a bit of time at the other side of course, but on this occasion that wasn’t to be. Maybe there were some folk on our return sailing who enjoyed a few hours exploring around Lochmaddy though - the photo above is of Sannox heading back to Harris later in the afternoon!
Robyn
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