News from mallaig harbour: october 2026

The weather has not improved any in September, and it definitely feels like Autumn has arrived. We’ve had some quite strong winds around the equinox, leading to disruption on the ferries, including the Knoydart ferry. The Lochnevis arrived back from dry dock on Thursday 24th, but unfortunately, has had various issues since, so the Loch Bhrusda and Larven have continued to service the small isles over the weekend, and, as I am writing this on Monday 28th September, are still doing so – today with support from the ‘Miss Marley’. The Loch Bhrusda was due to relocate to the Sound of Harris on Sunday 27th September, but this was delayed due to weather.

The Marina has quietened down, although the windy weather resulted in a few more visitors towards the end of September. We have had a RNLI Trent class lifeboat berthed on the pontoons through September. It’s en route from Portree to Fishguard where it will be decommissioned. We also had an open afternoon on the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust’s vessel ‘Silurian’ on the afternoon of the 15th September, and school visits to the vessel took place later that week.

July visitors at the Marina were on a par with last year, but August was quieter than last year, with only around 75% of the occupancy we had last year – probably due to the miserable weather here compared to the rest of the country! We are saying goodbye to Gavin Pearce, who is leaving to go and work with Western Isles Cruises. We have to thank Gavin for the work he has done over the summer. Our loss is Western Isles Cruises gain.  Millie is going to stay on to work with Chris on some of the maintenance, and will be with us again next year, so this will keep a bit of continuity in staff. We have also managed to get the marine diesel tank operational at the marina. Although visiting yachts will still have to fill cans from the tank and carry them down to their vessels, it will be a much shorter distance than carrying them through the village. We’re grateful to Denholms for their support in getting this up and running, and for supplying the fuel as we need it!

All our staff have been undertaking their Oil Spill response courses over the last month or so. We ran a course at the Harbour Buildings on Monday 15th September and were joined by staff from MOWI, Scottish Seafarms, CalMac and the RNLI. Briggs Marine were then on site on the Harbour on 29th September to undertake our three yearly oil spill response exercise with us. They created a scenario where a vessel was fuelling and witnessed a camper van losing control and hitting one of the fuelling points in the Outer Harbour, damaging the fuel points and pipeline and resulting in a diesel spill in the Harbour. Our team responded immediately, and closed the entrance to the Outer Harbour with our boom until reinforcements from Briggs Marine were able to arrive. Ironically, for the first time in weeks, the Outer Harbour was completely empty of boats when the exercise was taking place, and then filled up again almost as soon as Briggs Marine were offsite! It’s a good learning experience for all of us, not least Audrey and I managing the communications from the office, to take part in an exercise like this. Thankfully we have a plan to follow, and it all went smoothly – despite the Harbour Master’s best attempts to throw all sorts of complications at us!

If you are in the area, you will have noticed that works have started on Jary’s Wharf. Aberdeen Marine have cleared the old fendering and have been building the reinforcement panels and shuttering required for the first pour of concrete. In total there are nine piles which will be reinforced and new fendering and coping added, along with bollards and ladders etc. This will strengthen the area, and allow it to be used more effectively. Works are expected to be ongoing until just before Christmas.

If you follow the Harbour on social media, you will have seen that we shared some videos from NRK TV – a Norwegian TV company who filmed around the Harbour in 1973/74 for a series of three programmes looking at the difference between Mallaig and Åkra in Norway. It was amazing to see the Harbour thriving with the Herring fisheries, and a few familiar faces. As always, it’s interesting to see what has changed, and yet, how much has stayed the same! You can access the videos from this web address: https://tv.nrk.no/se?v=FOLA00016272. Sadly, just after we had shared the videos, we learnt that Anne MacGillivray, whose husband Charlie was Port Manager for CalMac in Mallaig for many years and who starred in the videos as a young teacher, had passed away. Our condolences to Anne’s family. 

We have continued to engage with local MSPs this month, and with our MP, Angus MacDonald, who held a surgery in the Harbour Building on Thursday 24th September. It was good to talk to Angus about our plans for the Harbour, and to understand the ways in which we can work with Westminster alongside the Scottish Government to try and take forward some of the proposals that we have for development.

Finally, I was lucky enough to be a guest of CMAL at the Scottish Maritime Cluster reception held on the Royal Yacht Brittania on Thursday 17th September. Stephen Flynn made a short speech alongside some of the sponsors of the event, including Aberdeen Harbour. Now known as Port of Aberdeen, it has a much longer history than Mallaig, and is officially the oldest existing business in Britain, having been established in 1163! We have a bit to go to catch up with that!

Jacqueline McDonell