All in a day - plenty of variety in one day on the May

A day of variation today on Planet May. ..

The May Princess had to cancelled due to the brutal north-easterly winds that had built up a swell. The RIB Osprey came out (it can deal with a bigger swell) but the visitors were so cold and damp when they got here that we invited them all into PK cottage's sitting room for a cup of tea and a warm up in front of the fire. All those bodies steamed up the camera.
Later the wind dropped a bit and Jeremy and myself did our annual rope safety training under the eagle-eyes of Pete and Glenn. This training enables us (mainly Jeremy) to get to difficult and scary places to do the all-island count of cliff nesting birds later in the season. In the meantime Pete and Glenn had much fun at our expenses as we bumbled around with the ropes.

We had just finished the training when my daughter Holly came up to say that she had found a seal caught up in fishing net. We all piled down to Tarbet for a comedy 10 minutes of swearing, jumping and yelling before we finally managed to get the net off the seal and released it without spilling any blood (ours or its).  Unfortunately Marshall's coat came off worse for wear and Mrs. Blair might not let him back in the house when he gets home on Saturday. This is the second seal caught in netting this spring that we have had to rescue. Though I don't think the seal fully appreciated our efforts to free it, if it hadn't been removed then the seal would have probably died eventually.  Another example of the impact of all the marine rubbish floating in the sea around the island.

At last the eiders are starting to come ashore with a small group of beautiful male and female eiders smooching on the loch.

By evening the wind had dropped right away for the most stunning of sunsets. A complete contrast to the start of the day.