Copy this photo ...

At the time of our first visit in 1968 we’d left our tent trailer at Loch Oich, which was maybe just as well as the ferry was then just a small turntable style vessel—or rather 4 similar boats operating as fast as possible to keep up with the traffic. By the time we returned in 1971 the turntable ferries had been replaced by much larger end loaders. Skye’s tourist business was expanding quickly and these boats were superseded in 1991 by even larger end-loaders. But progress and the continuing strong growth in traffic eventually doomed the ferry service and a bridge was opened in 1995.

I don’t remember much about Skye from 1968—we did a lot in a short time on that tour. On our 1971 visit we took our tent trailer and spent longer on the island, hiking a little in the Cuillins, visiting Dunvegan Castle and taking a day trip on the ferry from Uig to Tarbert on the Isle of Harris. I remember on that visit, as our ferry approached the ramp at Kyle of Lochalsh on our return, my Dad said “He’s going too fast”. And sure enough we hit the ramp hard, with a bang and a big shake, but with no visible harm. My third trip was with my wife in 1977, and my clearest memory from then is recovering a seat squab from a dumped car in an old quarry that I later used to repair my own Mini. Nothing romantic or Bonnie Prince Charlie about that!

In the 1960s Skye was very conservatively religious. Nothing opened on a Sunday. But tourism was putting a lot of pressure on the way of life there, and especially on the overloaded ferries, which at that time ran only 6 days a week. When plans we made to introduce Sunday ferry crossing to alleviate the congestion there was a lot of pressure from many of the islanders to prevent this, culminating in protests and arrests. I guess the bridge made that particular issue moot.

The bridge long ago killed the need for the Kyle of Lochalsh–Kyleakin ferry, but ferries remain important on Skye. From Sconser there is a car ferry over to the Isle of Raasay, and from Uig you can take ferries to Tarbert in Harris, or Lochmaddy in North Uist. Or if you want to arrive in Skye from the mainland by ferry there remain two options. To the south there is the Mallaig–Armadale route. And further north there is the Glenelg–Kylerhea route across the narrows on the MV Glenachulish. This is the last remaining manually operated turntable ferry in existence. We used in this one direction on one of our visits to Skye; a real treat that I must find a way of repeating.