St. Columba and the Loch Ness Monster

As I write this I am sitting in my B&B on the Isle of Skye gazing out the picture window, watching mountains slowly appear through the white haze, and then disappear at a moment’s notice.

Yep!  Typical Scotland weather.  But, you know what the say…..you can’t change the weather!  So, we’ll just have to go with the flow.

Our morning adventures began with us driving to Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness.

We no sooner arrived when Marty was sure that he had spotted the infamous creature:

 And, you can see that I was so frightened by what I saw that my hair stood on end.

Actually, in all honesty, my hairdo will certainly attest to the fact that it was far more than a wee bit windy today!

But, the truth be told,  we did NOT spot any monsters…at least none in the Loch, for sure.

In fact, Isobel had clued me in on the 3 secrets of Loch Ness:  Waves without Wind (you can forget about that possibility today); Fish without Fins…..can't say that we spotted any, and an island that floats, which I did see on the drive, but did not make any notice as to whether it looked as if it were floating.

So, it appeared that we missed quite a lot!  But we still managed to take a very nice tour of this castle.

By now, you are probably curious about the title of this blog.  Well, legend has it that St. Columba came to this part of Scotland in 565.  When he arrived, a man was being buried, and when he question how the man had died, St. Columba was told that this man had been seized and savagely bitten by a water beast.

At this point, St. Columba ordered one of his companions to swim across the loch to bring back a boat. While this man was swimming across the loch, the water beast began to attack him.   St. Columba raised his hand and commanded the savage beast to release the man and leave, and the creature did as the holy man had commanded.

Pretty good story, if you ask me, and certainly the first time I had heard about this accounting of the Loch Ness Monster.

Despite the overcast skies and intermittent weather, I was to capture a few photos

 Urquhart Castle is famous for being the largest castle in Scotland, although it has been ruins for many centuries.   It was the MacDonald clan that can be attributed to the destruction of this famous castle.  Now, that certainly is unfortunate!  They were notorious for rioting and destroying lands that did not belong to them, Urquhart included. 

Marty managed to get a photo of the two of us prior to us leaving.

After leaving the castle, we headed to our next destination, the Isle of Skye.

One thing that I forgot to mention about this area of Scotland is that the Gaelic language is still spoken here, and all of the signs are written in both English and Gaelic.  Many of the local mountains and villages have names stemming from Gaelic.  It certainly has been interesting seeing this second language in print here in this area of Scotland. 

We found ourselves traveling in the company of clouds and rain, but occasionally managed to stop to get a photo here and there of the landscape.

Once over the bridge, onto the Isle of Skye, we stopped in Broadhead to take in the beauty of this rainbow over the loch. 

The photo just doesn’t not do justice to the original.  It was shining brilliantly on both ends. 

We popped into the Talisker distillery since it was on the road to our destination.  

The place was crowded with people.  It appears that it fills daily with German tour groups.  It’s the only distillery on the island, and when it rains, it apparently becomes a main attraction.

Unfortunately, rain is predicted again for tomorrow.

But, we went ahead and reserved a 3:00 tour so that we could be sure to take the tour, to see what the different technique is in using peat to make this brand of whiskey.   When we toured the Dalwhinnie distillery, our tour guide had mentioned that while their whiskey was complimented with chocolate, this particular whiskey pairs well with smoked fish.

I’m fairly certain that this taste testing won’t be appealing to my taste buds.  But, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see.

Our B&B here on the isle is an original Croft house.  The owner is very welcoming and even made us tea with some baked treats when we arrived.   This area is a bit more remote than any other area where we have ventured in Scotland.  The roads are only one lane wide with pull offs every few hundred feet so that one can pull over and let the car driving in the opposite direction drive through.

Most people are pretty eager to pull over and flash their lights, indicating that it is OK for you to continue on the road.  But, as with most things, there is the occasional obnoxious driver, or the huge delivery truck, driving way too fast and obviously not giving way for anyone.  So, one must be able to stop quickly and pull over.  It's a little nerve wracking when Marty has to veer to the left and I'm staring down a steep cliff!  So…my knuckles are just a bit white.  

Also, there is only one restaurant in the nearby town.   It is located in the Old Inn.

There were only about 5 entrees on the menu, none of which appealed to me, so I opted to order 2 starters:  the soup of the day, broccoli and leek; and prawns broiled in garlic butter with a small side salad.  Since the fish is fresh caught from the loch, I thought it would be worth at least trying.

Apparently my definition of prawns differs from the Scottish definition.  I became a bit suspicious when the waitress brought me a bowl of hot water with a lemon floating in it, and an extra empty bowl, as well a shell cracker and little fork.

Well, my curiosity was tempered when the plate arrived and there were 3 miniature lobsters staring at me from the bowl.

I generally do not eat anything that is staring at me, but I somehow managed to pull the meat out of the main shell, and I can tell you that it was really good!

I’ll let you see the leftovers:

Weren't they cute?

Although that was certainly an interesting experience, I’m not really interested in repeating that for tomorrow’s dinner.

The wind is howling and the rain is pelting.  Here's hoping that tomorrow will be filled with some pleasant surprises!

I'll keep you posted.