Ferries and Electric Cars.

The Havila Ferry Company in Norway (which has state of the art hybrid ro-ro ferries wandering around pristine fjords for 4 hours on electric motors) has banned carrying electric cars.

Lithium batteries burn longer and hotter than conventional car fires and require thousands of gallons of water to extinguish. That is not something you want sloshing around inside a boat any more than you want a fire in the first place.

I live on an Island 2 ½ hours by ferry from the mainland. 

This could be a problem if the same ban were to be introduced. Given that the ferry company, Calmac, is ultimately owned by the Scottish Government (with it's green ambitions) they could be between a rock and a hard place if the operators decide it's too dangerous. 

I travel from home to Glasgow through the Scottish Highlands where electric charging points are notoriously few and far between and unreliable. Because of that I have absolutely no intention at the moment of buying and electric car anyway. Indeed as they are just becoming slightly more expensive to run (according to my car magazine) and are seriously more expensive to buy, my current chariot may well see out my driving career notwithstanding the ban on new emission-emitting vehicles after 2030.

Waiting For Service

Today I tried to order some central heating oil. The local office of Certas Energy is in Stornoway but since Covid you can no longer pop in and order anything over the counter. You telephone Certas Energy and give your details and eventually someone will hopefully ring you back at a time when you are not half way through climbing a ladder onto the roof or some such other inconvenient moment. 

If you live on a western Scotland Island there is a good chance a great deal of your life is involved with the Country's ferry operators, Caledonian Macbrayne Ltd. At the moment residents of Lewis have the opportunity to pop into the Stornoway Port Office for tickets and bookings. That's fair enough given that it's a lifeline service and we frequently have to change booking because of cancelled mainland hospital appointments or cancelled ferries because of the weather or breakdowns. 

However it's not possible for everyone to get into the office. So they have to telephone the main booking number or use the website. This is where Calmac have absolutely excelled themselves and, in my experience of using websites they have managed a first: a waiting list to access the website. The other day this popped up in response to me trying to access the website:

It's all very well for business to do everything they possible can to streamline things and keep costs down (if they reward customers with fair prices) but it seems to me that the last person ever to be considered these days is the service user - whatever it is.

Sixty years ago I joined Liverpool Corporation. When I was given the job I was told by the Assistant Town Clerk "You have joined Liverpool Corporation. It will look after you  (and it certainly did in that it sent me to University and much more) and ALL YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER IS THAT YOUR JOB IS TO SERVE THE PUBLIC! NEVER FORGET THAT." 

I never did. I just wish that the same could be said in any organisation today.

ADDENDUM: A friend pointed out yesterday that he had started off at with, let us say 3000 people in front of him and when he went back at this expected time he was further down the queue with 800 odd more people in front of him and even more time to wait. That looks like a system in turmoil to me.

Highland and Island Travel

I travelled home on Saturday. I had to plan it on the basis of the snow from Storm Eunice having gone and the lull in the wind between storms allowing the Saturday evening ferry to sail. 

Unfortunately my second lot of hospital plans (ie my stent change) didn't quite work out. I was supposed to have the procedure on Thursday but as I was getting into the car to drive to the hospital I got a call from the hospital to say that they had no beds. They could do the procedure but couldn't stick me in a bed afterwards. I'm now scheduled for the middle of March. Hey ho.

The drive from Glasgow to Ullapool was one of the best I've had. There was very little traffic.  The sun shone out of a blue sky and the hills, forests and fields were covered in snow. The ferry wasn't overly busy and the sea was reasonably calm.

Unfortunately I discovered that my dashcam had not been recording onto the SDD card so all the fabulous winter footage of driving through the Scottish Highlands doesn't exist. 

The weather forecasts all seem a bit out of kilter for us at the moment. The storms don't seem to be coming our way despite the predictions on the various weather apps. However, I don't think I'd be relying on the ferries for the rest of this week notwithstanding.

SID5: The Good and The Bad

The days seem to be flying past at an alarming rate. Saturday was another pleasant enough day and I carried on working outside doing maintenance. Sunday was not pleasant and I spent the day doing household chores, reading blogs, drinking coffee and doing crosswords and then making a huge blitz on all the emails in my inbox. I hardly watched any television and eventually fell into bed just after midnight. 

At the weekend The Highlands (of Scotland) were inundated by camper vans and cars of people 'escaping' from the cities of the Central Belt and England. Many are heading for their holiday homes. The infrastructure of The Highlands can hardly cope in the summer these days but no one was expecting such a raid on the already panic-buying-stricken shops. All public gathering places such as pubs and restaurants had already been closed by the Scottish Government.

The Independent needs to use commas where appropriate.
 I'm not sure why the Army needs to help McDonalds to close

All ferry services  to the Scottish Islands have stopped carrying anyone except island residents and essential services personnel and freight. The ferry and air services have been very much reduced.

So far we have no known cases in the Outer Hebrides and we'd like to keep it that way. Our medical infrastructure would struggle. Indeed the RAF had to send an Atlas A400M Transport Aircraft to Shetland to transport a critically ill virus patient to Aberdeen Hospital at the weekend.

Our weather today is storm force gales and rain and the ferries are storm-bound in port anyway today and tomorrow. I'm not going out for a walk today that's for sure. The forecast is the same for tomorrow.

Talking of storm bound my son, daughter-in-law and 2 year old grandson (who live on Lewis) are marooned in Australia. Their flights home were 'suspended' this morning (UK time). Likewise two daughters of a friend staying with a sibling in New Zealand are also marooned. 

In the meantime we must all maintain our sense of humour. The Duke of Wellington Monument in Glasgow has been the battleground in the past for students who kept putting a traffic cone on the Duke's head and the Council who kept removing it. Eventually the Council conceded that it was a huge tourist draw for photos and selfies and left it there. So it was inevitable that someone would add a mask at this time. I assume it's photoshopped but who knows.

We Have Survived

Ten years ago today a monumental thing happened to the Isle of Lewis. The first scheduled Sunday ferry service sailing to the Island occurred. Lewis had been the bastion of Sabbatarian opposition to the ferry sailing on Sunday. I can hardly believe that I wrote this post ten years ago. Even then the vocal Sabbatarian opposition only numbered about 20 whilst supporters on the quayside cheering the ferry (which was carrying an almost full complement of vehicles) numbered over 200. 

When the first Sabbath ferry sailed to the Isle of Skye in 1965, a minister lay down on the pier and had to be removed by the police.

The ferry operators, Caladonia MacBrayne (Calmac), said that it also had received legal advice that it could be breaking European laws if it followed the wishes of one part of the community on Lewis, while sailing to almost every other large island on a Sunday.

Prof Donald Macleod, principal of the Free Church college in Edinburgh, accused the firm of "bullying" the islanders. He warned: "It's going to have a domino effect on church attendance and will change the community from a Christian civilisation to a secular, humanist society." The Rev Angus Smith, a veteran campaigner, said the service would bring "things that terrify parents", including shops opening seven days a week.

While a large section of the population was celebrating, the most Presbyterian residents warned that judgment awaited. The Rev Dr James Tallach of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland said: "CalMac made a great play that they must keep the law. Well, I ask them what about the law of God? "We will not be tried at the end of the day, when all of us stand before the judgment seat of Christ, on the basis of EU law."

Well looking back the strange thing is that absolutely nothing changed apart from the fact that we can all go on and off the Island 7 days a week. Sunday happens to be a very busy day for the ferry. People can actually go away for a long weekend.

As for shops opening., very little has changed. The one shop/petrol station that does open in Stornoway did so long before the Sunday ferry started. 

I'm sure that now, if the ferry were to be withdrawn, the Island's worthies would be as up in arms as they were over its introduction. After all that's what happened when the Sunday air service to Benbecula was opposed and then its withdrawal was opposed.

Life goes on.