In March 2019, when we went to Raasay to launch the book about the ACFA surveys, the island was beset by a storm. The wind and rain and hail were strong enough that the ferry was cancelled for an entire day. People, including visitors to the island, were unable to leave, and those who had been off island were unable to return.
The view of Skye from Raasay House, with a storm brewing.
Such stormy weather is not unusual for Raasay. In the mid 19th century, the butler at Raasay House, Mr. Bunning, recorded weather, along with significant events of the year in a Weather Diary, which is now in the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh (MET 1/4/18). For example, in 1852, the year people were cleared from Fearns, Bunning records that the year started out stormy. On January 5, “neither man nor horse” was able to work and the mail boats were having a hard time crossing. It snowed the next week, and then the weather turned rainy and cold. January 21 the post boat could not cross over from Skye again, and Mr. Bunning recorded that “such a storm was not remembered in Raasay for some years”. At the end of the month there was thunder and lightning! According to the Raasay House weather gauge it rained nearly nineteen inches in January.
Regular ferry service between Sconser and Raasay only began in 1976, after some years when Raasay was reached by the post-boat from Portree.(http://www.shipsofcalmac.co.uk/crossing_sr.asp ) Before the regular service, when people, animals, some food, and raw materials all were transported between the island and Skye or the mainland, life could be quite disrupted by storms. Mr Bunning frequently refers to the post-steamer being unable to land. Furthermore, everything and everyone had to be transported in small boats from the shore out to the larger steamers waiting to transport them around the world.
Raasay Archaeology 