It's hard to beat puffins (see the last post if you have no idea what I'm taking about), but it was just early afternoon by the time our puffin adventure was over.

Our next stop was Tobermory!


I thought our animal adventure was over, but as we were leaving Treshnish we spotted seals! If you look close you can see the outline of one and a couple seal heads popping out of the water.

Everybody except for me and two students piled in the covered portion of the boat, but we wanted to enjoy the views. I can never understand how people can sleep when there's so much to see!

Tobermory is the capital of the Isle of Mull and is absolutely picture-perfect. They say that a ship from the Spanish Armada sank here in 1588.

The bright buildings are adorable and remind me of Rainbow Row in Charleston.

We only had an hour to explore Tobermory. Fiancé and I hadn't gotten the "pack your lunch" memo, so our goal was to find food (I know you're shocked) since it was really late in the afternoon.

We found a food truck and I ordered fish and chips. These were by far the best of our trip because of the crispy but light and non-greasy batter on the fish, and probably because I experimented with the salt and vinegar. Yum. This time I didn't share!

Due to the limited time we couldn't do a tour of Tobermory Distillery, but that just means we'll have to come back!

And we can't have a meal without dessert! It's a rule that we always abide by.

It was so hard to choose when we were in the bakery because everything looked delicious. We went with the apple strudel/turnover and a rocky road bar (it was definitely number one).

Our day wasn't even close to being over, though! We had another hour of riding to get to our next stop, Ganavan Sands. Our Coastal Connection guide knew how excited I got when we saw the seals, so he took us to a location where they usually all hang out on the rocks. They lounge on one side so the rocks prevent the wind from hitting them.

I loved how the guy above raised himself up so he could watch us ride by. They all popped up as we went by to get a good look at us!

It's a little hard to discern the seals from the rocks in these pics, but I promise they're there!

Again, so many seals!

Our final stop was Ganavan Sands (below) to do some coasteering, which I was NOT looking forward to. What's coasteering you ask? Well. We put wetsuits and lifejackets on and climbed along the rocks of the coastline. Sometimes there would be huge gaps in the coast, so we'd then have to jump in the water and swim across to the next rocks. The temperature outside was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (and I think that's being generous), so you can only imagine how cold the water was. I told everyone I would absolutely not be getting in the water, but I ended up getting one leg wet and figured what the heck, so I jumped on in. When in Scotland, right?

It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, but I did struggle on the last swimming section because I was loaded down, battling the waves, and am not a strong swimmer to begin with. I made it, but as I was hanging on to the rocks for dear life (why did it take everyone so long to climb out??) I ripped my poor fingers to pieces. I didn't notice all the blood until I finally reached safety at the top.

The next adventure was to jump off the top of the rocks, which I definitely didn't participate in. That's just crazy 🙂

Don't be fooled by the blue sky and the beach – it was COLD! It took me what felt like an hour to get out of the wetsuit and back into dry clothes, and by that time almost all of the food was gone from the cookout the parents had prepared for us 😦

By the time the sun was going down, I was freezing and ready for a hot shower! But what an amazing day!!!

Have you ever tried coasteering? Are you one of the brave ones who would jump off the cliffs?