This has been a month of learning the ropes for me, meeting people and trying to understand everything that’s going on, and how it all fits together!
I’m lucky to have a great view from my office window, and there’s been a lot of activity outside the office this month as Knoydart Construction have the contract to build a new Hydro Electric scheme on the Barisdale Estate on Loch Hourn, so Milligan Transport have been taking all the required equipment in by sea from Mallaig.
The Marina has been busy, and we have two new staff supporting Chris – Courtney is managing the Shore Base, and Michael is covering days off for the summer season.
The warm weather has meant lots of demand on the ice plant – we’ve been working at capacity some days, but we continue to have issues with the IT side of things, so haven’t been able to fully automate the plant yet.
We welcomed another new boat to the harbour this month. The ‘Fleur De Lys’ has been bought by Donald Sharman of Mallaig Boatyard Ltd, to be upgraded to provide weekly cruises.
There has again been some disruption to the Cal-Mac sailings, with the Lord of the Isles having to fill in for the Isle of Lewis and undertake some unscheduled runs to Barra, meaning that capacity between Mallaig and Armadale was affected. On the positive side, CalMac have installed two new passenger shelters, one for passengers waiting to access the Loch Nevis via the RO-RO ramp, and another one on the breakwater for those using the Skye ferries. These are designed to protect passengers from the worst of the weather. Thankfully they haven’t been needed much this month!
XOcean are still surveying the coastline this month, so you may have seen their remotely operated vessel south of Mallaig. It was making the most of the good weather last week, and headed back into the harbour at 10pm last Thursday, closely followed by its operator on the Harbour Tender.
I’ve been reviewing some of the charges, and it has been agreed that we will increase the cost of an annual parking permit from £50 to £60 with effect from 1st August. This is still great value for money at £5 a month, and is the first increase since the charges were implemented. We have a waiting list for car parking spaces, so if anyone no longer wants theirs then please let us know.
Finally for this month, we have set up a Facebook page – www.facebook.com/mallaigharbour so if you are interested in what’s going on, then give us a ‘like’!
Jacqueline McDonell, CEO : info@mallaigharbourauthority.com
