Liquidstate

16th Aug - Met up with boat in Kerrera/Oban. She was waiting on pontoon for us

18th Aug - Left Kerrera at 7am for Tobermory.  Bryan departed, reversing out and managing to navigate down the strip and avoiding the ferry.  Saw the seaplane leave.  Lise on helm. Russ on nav. how odd.  F2/3.  Picked up buoy in tobermory just after lunch.

19th Aug - Left Tobermory at 1200 with no real destination in mind.  Wind started F1, built to F4.  Chose to go to Vatersay Bay (off Barra).  Motorsailed at 9knots in order to get in before dark.  Arrived at 8pm with Lise on helm as we dropped anchor.  Took a long walk to Castle Bay.  Discovered two foul local ales.  Discovered scallop pakora.  Lots of midgies.  Bus back to boat.

21st Aug - Left Vatersay bay at 7am with good F4 NE wind.  Headed for Ross of Mull, Gunna Sound. Arrived at “Rubh Ardalanish”, the one boat bay.  Tried Tinkers hole, but it was full.  Very picturesque.

22nd Aug - Left our little bay very carefully at 7.30am.  Sailed past several distilleries: Ardbeg, Lagavulin, Laphroaig.  Tried to get in at Lagavulin by lining up the letters, but it was a bit small.  Sailed on towards Port Ellen.  Anchored in bay.  Got weather report off mobile phone, and didn’t look good, so we moved into Port Ellen harbour.  Wind due to back, turning our nice anchorage into a leeshore.  Port Ellen looked a bit small, but Jen got us in alright.  Went straight to the pub!  Did the whiskey tours - legavulin and Ardbeg.

24th Aug - Left Port Ellen at 7.30am.  Another departure by Bryan.  Not quite as smooth as he would like thanks to the wind, but got the job done!  Arrived Troon at 6.30pm.

I was in the market for a new PC and, with all the hype, I thought it might be interesting to try the Mac life for a while.  I certainly wasn’t brave (or feeling flush) enough to splash out on a nice Mac Pro, so instead, with a little help from a friend, I built a Hackintosh!  For those not in the know, new Mac desktops and laptops run on Intel hardware, and with a little bit of work, you can convince OSX to run on commodity PC hardware.

I’ll post my thoughts on Leopard later, but in the meantime, I thought some might appreciate a how-to.

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Well, some may say it was inevitable, others might say its overdue, but on Christmas day, Jen accepted my proposal, and we’re now in the throws of organising the wedding! There is a Wedding Website that is currently limited to those who have been invited, but may be made public after the wedding.

[23/06/08] Update: Wedding photos are now online!  (more to come!)

A great little scenic dive to finish off the maldives holiday, and also my 60th dive. Great to finish off on a round number for some reason!  After the problems with my sinuses the previous day, I was a bit worried I’d be stuck at 59!

This site is a thila and noted for shark sightings. Expect to see white tip, grey reef, silver tips and if you are lucky even hammer head sharks.  Sadly, we didn’t see any sharks, and I had problems with my sinuses, which meant I had to skip the following two dives of the day.