Temperature inversion on Loch Broom

We were woken up in the middle of the night, maybe about 2 a.m. by five deep blasts from a foghorn. We realised that it was the ferry going past the window, and that there was thick fog outside. In the morning there was a spectacular temperature inversion going on outside. The loch was shrouded in fog but above it there was blue sky and sunshine. 

The wee ferry runs from Ardmair to community owned Isle Martin at the weekends during the summer. We have travelled around it in the Shearwater several times but wanted to explore it, so we went along to the jetty at Ardmair to catch the boat. There were four middle-aged men ahead of us who were going to scatter their parents’ ashes on the island because it was a favourite place of theirs. Later the ferry skipper, Angelica, told us that the men had told her that it was where their parents had consummated their relationship. “Their words!” she insisted, when I looked surprised. I wonder if our boys would do that for us one day? It would involve breaking into someone else’s house though, and also it is a story that I don’t think they would want us to relate! 

 Isle Martin is very small and covered with bracken and springy aromatic heather; it was inhabited over the centuries for farming and fishing but now welcomes visitors to its bunkhouse and for day trips. We walked over to the beach at the south facing end of the island; it was stony and very pretty with views across to the Scoraig peninsula and the Summer Isles. We ate our picnic lunch and then James went roaming around the small hills while I read my book in the warm sunshine. I had the beach all to myself and I enjoyed hearing the sea lapping against the stones and sea birds crying as they wheeled around high above me. It was really lovely. Then we relaxed on the jetty reading our books until the ferry came back for us.