Aboard the Ocean Endeavour |

I’ve been on this ship before, 2 years ago in the Arctic. See my blog at Arctic-explorer-expedition-2016 . Same ship and same tour company, Adventure Canada, but completely different adventure.

We had some rough seas on this trip and Mathew, our expedition leader, worked very hard to modify the itinerary such that we still visited as many sites as possible, safely. The large North Atlantic swell made zodiac launches very difficult and sometimes impossible. At one point, we had to sail into a protected loch quite a bit off our scheduled route to spend the night.

Adventure Canada supplied us with expedition jackets, so I felt that we were wearing blue uniforms. The jackets proved very useful for the windy hikes, and you will see much blue in my photos.

Again, there was lots of history and anthropology. On the first few days of the expedition, we visited the islands of Islay and Lewis, and saw the black houses at Uig Bay (2000 years old), a Broch house at Dun Carloway, and the Standing Stones of Callanish (3000 BC). There is also much Viking history on these outer islands.

I also started my inevitable single malt tasting at this time and learned that the whisky’s of Islay are not my favourite. I find that they are too peaty for my taste, which is to be expected since the Isle of Islay is practically all peat. For me there is a gasoline aftertaste, but of course, I will still drink it.

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