Harbour News
Whitefish totalled 3300 boxes from 2 Scottish trawlers and 5 Anglo Spanish liner / netters. The offshore twin riggers Endeavour and Audacious landed good shots of mixed fish from the Shelf Edge and Rockall respectively The Anglo fleet are starting to return from time off at home, fishing is still holding up with boats making weekly landings of quality hake and ling.
The shellfish sector has once again been busy with the visiting east coast twin rig prawn trawlers landing over 80 tonnes of whole prawns and tails for the period. Amazingly the fishery is still standing up to the increased effort despite several hundred tonnes being removed from the Minches over the past 6 weeks. The offshore crabbers continue to land decent hauls of brown crab from grounds west of the Butt of Lewis and the scallop dredger Star of Annan landed 150 bags of quality shells from local waters.
The non fishing sector saw the luxury cruise ship Hebridean Princess in for a scheduled 24hr port call and the Hebridean charter vessel Cuma in to pick up crew. The Cuma was acting as support vessel for The Big Minch Swim with 8 swimmers taking 45 minute spells to cover the 62 miles from Ullapool to Stornoway to raise funds for the RNLI. The swimmers were accompanied by dolphins and a pod of killer whales but undaunted they made the crossing and raised over £10,000 for their efforts. Fantastic effort- well done to all concerned. Should you wish to make a donation check out the fund raising website www.justgiving/thebigminchswim
On the back of last year’s successful visit the Norwegian Tall Ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl returned to Ullapool last weekend on a scheduled Bergen-Ullapool-Bergen voyage. The magnificent vessel was open to the public for 6 hours and in that time an amazing 1230 people visited the ship. The Feis Rois Ceilidh on Saturday evening was a sell out with upwards of 200 local revellers and 100 trainees and crew dancing the evening away. The skipper and crew thoroughly enjoyed their visit and plans are taking shape for a longer port call in 2013. Many thanks in no particular order to Summer Queen Cruises, John Grant and his team, Joan, Sheila & Audrey, the Feis Rois youngsters Kirsty-Anne, Scott, Siannie, Kaitlin and Innes and last but not least all of you that turned out to support the visit. Statsraad sailed yesterday morning heading home to Bergen with 3 extra local stowaways making the voyage.
Next Monday the harbour will welcome the biggest cruise ship yet to anchor in Lochbroom the Phoenix Reisen owned Artania complete with 1200 passengers and 600 crew. Built in 1984 the 44,500 tonnes is due to arrive at 0800 hrs and depart the harbour at 1700, let’s hope for a dry day and a highland welcome for our visitors.
Public Meeting – Wednesday 11th July – 19:00 – Terminal Building, Ullapool Harbour
CMAL invites Ullapool residents to hear more information about the new
Stornoway-Ullapool ferry
See separate advert for full details