British Isles & Iceland – Day 2 can be found here.
Good morning, Isle of Skye!
The morning dawned bright and early – up at 6:15 am so that we could be ready for breakfast in our rooms at 6:30 am so we could be ready early. It was delicious and extremely elaborate, but I’m not sure we really accomplished our goal of saving ourselves much time – it’s quite the production, bringing in all the food and setting it up. I think we’ll be back at La Terrazza tomorrow.
We’d developed a fairly good system with our packs after our hike out to Giant’s Causeway, so it was mostly just a matter of getting ourselves sunscreened and refilling water bottles before we set out on the Loch Scavaig hike. It was about 4.3 miles of really boggy, uneven terrain – which the kids absolutely loved.
Weather was beautiful and there were no midges, despite the reminder to bring bug spray. They’d set it up so it was a single path out and back, so that the expedition team could roll up any stragglers. The method seemed to work well – we did make it to the far side of the lake and got back after about a 2.5 hour hike.
Lock Scavaig, Isle of Skye:
Back on the Zodiac, and our driver took us in for a view of some seals that were relaxing on a rock. We managed some nice pictures with our phones but some of our fellow guests were getting great shots with SLR cameras and advanced lenses. Something to consider for next trip…
Seals!
On to the Grill for lunch, which was absolutely slammed – though service was still excellent. Burger was almost as good the second time around and the cocktail – Crimson Reef? Will need to confirm – was lovely and refreshing.
Quick power nap in the room, then off to the expedition briefing for tomorrow which confirmed timings for the 60 to 90 minute long Zodiac cruise for Shiant Islands. No landfall unfortunately, but not surprising given that they are private islands. It will also give our feet a break after 9 miles of hiking in 2 days.
Then it was off to the Isle of Canna for a quick walk – we elected to skip the suggested western path and instead loop northeast through the forest where there were a great number of midges as well as some sort of gigantic nest – an eagle maybe? – and a very storybook-like atmosphere, if one ignored all the buzzing and arm-waving.
Isle of Canna:
We then looped around through a field to the ruins of a castle and a beautiful black sand beach. The kids were having a blast damming up a small stream that was running down the rocks.
We didn’t stay long, though, as we could see rain looming on the horizon. We soon packed up, and dashed back to the docks where the Zodiacs were waiting – sparing one long, sad, lingering look for the lovely-looking pub that I unfortunately had to skip in order to get back before getting completely soaked.
Despite our rapid departure, the rain came down hard and heavy, giving us only a few moments to get on our rain jackets before we were completely soaked. Silversea had the situation well in hand, however, and we were only waiting a minute or two before we were loaded onto a Zodiac and whisked back to the Cloud where we were soon able to get out of our sopping clothes.
I’m now back at the observation lounge for a drink and a quick bit of writing, and then we’ll be off to the main restaurant for dinner tonight. There are 4 restaurants on the ship – The Main Dining Room (aka The Restaurant), La Terrazza and the Grill. There’s also La Dame which has a surcharge.
After returning from the Isle of Canna, we spent some more time at the observation lounge and then returned to our room to get ready for dinner at 7 pm.
While we’d been scheduled to dine at La Terrazza again, we elected to cancel that reservation and try the Restaurant instead. I elected for the Meat Gyoja and the Black Tiger Prawn Curry, while my wife had the Lobster Bisque and the Prawn Curry. She had the prosecco, and I had the house chardonnay. All of it was very, very good.
Menu from The Restaurant tonight:
Meal tonight – Meat Gyoja, Black Tiger Prawn Curry, and Chocotorta.
And something I didn’t know existed! The elusive Silversea Children’s Menu…
The kids were thrilled to discover that the Restaurant has a children’s menu. Both had chicken fingers as an appetizer, and our daughter had the pasta Alfredo for her main and our son had the margherita pizza. It was all very good. Service was maybe a touch slower than it was at La Terrazza but given the early start tomorrow it seemed like many of the guests had opted for an early seating at the main Restaurant.
After, the kids each had a triple sundae (with vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream) while I had the chocotorta, and my wife had the cheese plate.
Since we have another early start tomorrow it was off to bed after dinner – where we discovered that my Zodiac lifejacket had spontaneously inflated due to the water.
(At least it didn’t happen in the middle of the night.)
Tomorrow’s Chronicle:
The sun sets on the Cloud
Continue reading British Isles & Iceland – Day 4 here.