Wildlife and Whisky on Islay

Having cleaned the boat yesterday and with the sun still shining strongly, we decided to take the coastline walk to see 3 of the local whisky distilleries, which are a big industry on Islay. 
It was rather a long hot walk down a fenced tarmac footpath (the distilleries want to make sure that you do not get lost along the way or even on the way back if you have been sampling their products).

The Ardbeg Distillery - next to the sea
Our lunch at the café in the furthest distillery - Ardbeg - unusually consisted of food, unlike many of the other visitors who chose to try a set of 5 different whiskies instead!
This week is the Islay Malt and Music festival and the distilleries have thrown open their doors to visitors from all over the world.  We met some Americans from Florida who had booked 9 months ago for their visit to the distilleries and were looking forward to being allowed to fill their own whisky bottle.

While doing our washing at the machine in the Harbour Office I got chatting to the man in the house next door.  He explained why so many gate posts have quartz rocks on top of them.  This is to ward off bad spirits he said - interesting.
Evil Spirit Protection on the Gate Posts
And he showed me the "pet" wild rabbit who lives in his garden.
The Garden Rabbit
The following day, we decided to sail to the Armore Islands, a few miles along the coast. 
Just before we set off, we noticed the local fishermen were sorting something alive in their boxes on the shore.  I went to take a look.
The Fishermen Sorting their catch of Velvet Crabs
They told us these were Velvet Crabs and that they were sorting them into "large" or "small" before sending them, tightly packed into plastic baskets, alive to Spain.  These crabs would be sold in Northern Spain in 3 days time.

We had a gentle sail in light winds  and then wound our way carefully between the rocks to anchor amongst the uninhabited Ardmore Islands.  We could hear the honks and snorts from the seal colony nearby and took our dinghy to investigate.  As we rowed, a group of seals kept a careful eye on us with their heads out of the water, following our progress.
Seal Heads Round Us in the Ardmore Islands
We saw a lot of seals lying on the shore and had read that this is a breeding colony, so did not go too close in case we disturbed them.  Their noises filled the anchorage and it was lovely to be able to anchor in this beautiful remote place :)






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