Tuesday 16 September

Hurricane ‪Odile‬ has hit Baja California head-on, and there has been no update on the BajaInsider website since midnight local time, 10 hours ago. The airfield at Cabo San Lucas has stopped issuing weather reports twelve hours earlier. I just hope all are well over there. Odile reportedly carried winds of 110 knots / 130 mph at landfall, and is the strongest storm to hit the peninsula since 1948. The system will now slowly weaken as it drags the length of the peninsula, 1000 miles or 1670 km. Odile will turn up at the US border, in southern Arizona, on Friday, no longer a tropical cyclone but certainly a very wet area of low pressure.

Two days of campaigning left in the Scottish independence referendum. I take the liberty of echoing HM Queen Elizabeth II - people should think very carefully about their future. Without attribution I'll say this: If you feel passionately that Scotland should be independent, go for it. Shout it from the roofs, plaster the streets with your views. It's a free country. If you feel that Scotland should stay part of the UK, shout it from the roofs and plaster the streets with your views. That's the beauty of democracy. Thursday's the day. 18 September 2014. Speak then, or be forever silent. There will not be another chance. Not to rejoin the UK, nor to go for independence at a future date.

I went on a boattrip today from Maraig (Maaruig) in North Harris. A small powerboat took 5 passengers, including myself, on a two-hour tour of Loch Seaforth. This showed a close-up view of South Pairc, a derelict area of the island which is normally only accessible after a lengthy walk from the nearest road. Weather was dry, but with variable amounts of cloud. Fair bit of splashing going on, which prompted the skipper, from the Scaladale Centre, to slow down his craft.

Before setting out from Maraig, I had nearly 3 hours to spare, which I filled in by walking up the path towards Urgha. At the highest point, above the Laxdale Lochs, I had a lovely view of said lochs. A group of mountain bikers turned up, who were doing a circuit from Tarbert to Maraig, round to Reinigeadal and back to Urgha via the postman's trail.

More pics here