Saturday afternoon

Today is a vast contrast to what the rest of the week was like. There is bright sunshine and hardly any wind. The ferry operator Calmac is busy catching up on two days of missed sailings due to the gale and swell. This morning at 6.15, the MV Muirneag left port to slowly amble across the Minch to Ullapool, followed 45 minutes later by the passenger ferry Isle of Lewis. The Muirneag took about 4 hours to cross the Minch, and returned at 4pm with some lorries. Quite a few of those would have been stuck on the A9 between the central belt and Inverness on account of the heavy snow of this week. The Isle of Lewis is due to return tonight at 9pm on her scheduled run.

I have spent the day closely monitoring the tsunami which is fanning out across the Pacific. The wave is currently traversing French Polynesia and will reach New Zealand in two hours' time. The Californian coast will see the first of this wave in just over 2 hours' time at 1202 PST, reaching the Canadian border 3 hours later. By that time, the tsunami is expected to have reached Australia, between Sydney and Brisbane. Hawaii is also due to see the wave, in 3 hours' time at 11.05 HST. At the moment, wave reports suggest that the tsunami is down to a matter of inches on passing the Mexican coastline.

Devastation in Chile is said to be great, with around 120 fatalities. Television reports show dramatic scenes of collapsed buildings and highway overpasses.