View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Saturday, 26 November 2011

Saturday 26 November

More high winds today, with the ferry stormbound in Ullapool after making just one crossing, first thing this morning. It is now due to return from the mainland, departing there at 11 am tomorrow morning, and hopefully managing its customary Sunday return trip. The winds are not as high as on Thursday, when we topped 80 mph, but force 7 is still a near-gale.

As I have often mentioned (on Facebook), fuel prices in these islands are sky-high. A litre of diesel costs about £1.50 (that's $9.30 a gallon). In order to alleviate the pain, the UK government has gracefully allowed a 5p rebate in fuel prices. Fat lot of use. When the idea was floated, fuel prices shot up by a suspicious 4p a litre. There is something strange going on in this part of the world. Fuel is delivered by tanker ship, and the same boat delivers fuel to Inverness and Scrabster on the mainland, where prices are an eye-watering 20p a litre lower than here. If you can make sense of that, please let me know. I can't.