Back in Oban – Day 1

Our first view of Scotland - Brrrrr....
[Maryanne]We arrived in Scotland in style - 1st class tickets courtesy of Kyle's job (thank you VERY MUCH). The flight was over night, but it was daylight as we landed around 8am - and quite a shock to see snow covered hills as we did so. Kyle and I were not sat together but I managed to catch his attention and give him the look that told him I was not too happy about that.. Ho hum, now we just have to manage with what we have I guess, but it sure would have been nice to have delayed our return by a couple of weeks as originally planned; unfortunately Kyle's work schedule would not oblige.

[Kyle]After a very long series of flights from Houston/Phoenix to Glasgow and then a very long drive, we made it to Oban just in time to make the 2 o’clock ferry over to Kerrera, where Footprint is stored for the winter.

While we have been looking forward to getting back aboard our little home and resuming our adventures, mostly we were filled with dread at both having to do the long list of jobs that were necessary to get Footprint ready to go back in the water and what condition we might find her in after six pretty rough months alone.


Kyle manages the luggage back at the yard - that a guy!
Back at the boat, of course, the reality revealed itself. Footprint appeared to be intact but was a dreadful mess. The yard was one big, gritty mud puddle that was impossible to keep from tracking all over the boat. The decks were covered with dead leaves and twigs and dirt, all oozing streaks of brown that collected in algae-filled puddles. Inside, all of the cupboards were open and the cushions were askew to improve air circulation to every corner. The addition of our luggage made the place look completely trashed and left us with no place to sit.

The first item on my list was to get the bed put back in place and made up so we could sleep that night. Maryanne made a half-hearted attempt to clear off enough space for us to eat. We were so tired. Even though we wanted to get as much done as we could while it was still light out, we were both mostly staring off into space trying to get up the motivation to do the next thing and overwhelmed by trying to figure out where to even start. After a painful half an hour of this, we decided to skip dinner and just go to bed for a while – just to get our energy back up. The next thing I knew, it was pitch black. We had slept halfway through the night. We decided we’d feel better if we made it a set, so we slept through the other half, too.