We have been having a really good time here at Oban, doing some race activities but also a lot of sightseeing.
My friends Paula and Seb came to Oban to welcome me, so I spent the afternoons and evenings of the first three days with them, we did a lot of nice walks, including one to the crazy amphitheater at the top of the town, really good views from there. We also had some nice dinners and lunches, including going to the green shack, a local highlight where you can have really fresh seafood cooked for you on the spot and which was literally finger licking good.
On the day after our arrival we also did a really deep boat clean. I worked with Cleo to do the food inventory, we found we really had too much stuff. We were able to get rid of a lot of it by sharing with other boats and preparing some bags for local charities.
The next day I participated in boat maintenance and I learned how to take apart the jammers and clean them.
Next day I took a walk around the Kerrera island which is just in front of Oban. I went there really early and for the first couple of hours I was walking alone. The walk was really nice, took me around 5 hours including a visit to the small castle at the South end of the island. I almost screwed up, I thought that prize giving was at 6, so I had booked my ferry back for 4pm. Fortunately Will asked about the venue for the event, I looked it up and realised that it was at 4! Fortunately I was able to change my booking to the 2pm ferry (I was lucky, there was only one spot left)
At prize giving I was really pissed off. I had created a really good video of our race which everyone agreed was awesome and I had submitted it for the media prize and had high hopes for it. But the prize went to another video which everyone agreed was much worse than mine. The concept was good but the execution was really poor.
After the prize giving we had a really great time at the Ceilidh, they taught us how to do some Scottish dances and the result was a disaster but a lot of fun 😊
Next day I drove to the Isle of Skye to do some sightseeing and get away from Clipper for a while. We had an amazing time, Skye is really amazing and the landscapes are incredible. Tall mountains, ridged peaks, high cliffs, waterfalls everywhere... It was also quite tiring as I drove for 7 hours each day.
The father of my friend Gary from Dare to Lead had recommended to visit the Coruisk Loch, so my second day in Skye we went to Elgol to take a boat to the loch. The place was really amazing with really steep hills full of waterfalls surrounding the loch. It's a shame that the weather was horrendous and I got really drenched. I met a really nice Australian guy, David, he was a musician on tour and he played some songs for us on the boat.
Then these last days I have been mainly chilling, we did all the shopping for the victualling, it was really easy as we only needed to buy some fresh items, and today we had our crew brief for our last race.
So we are now all ready to depart tomorrow and to arrive in Portsmouth where all our friends and family will be waiting and where I'm sure there will be an amazing welcome.
