Review : Idyllic Islands: Mull, Iona, Staffa & the Treshnish Isles

2 May 2024

Hi Emma - My family and I were lucky enough to spend a week on board the Lucy Mary last week (2/5-8/5) and spent it with the most wonderful crew of Lewis, Zoe, Bella, Sian and Jasmine.  I’d like to pass on my thanks to them all.  Their open, friendly demeanour, attention to detail and incredible organisation made the whole experience a total delight.  Each day ran so smoothly that, as guests, all we had left to do was marvel at the beauty of the location and the wlldlife, oh and eat an insane amount of utterly delicious food.  Huge thank you to Zoe for being so available and informative, for gracefully answering our amateur wildlife questions with no flicker to suggest that she had heard them all before.  She heartily joined in our silly family banter, invited us to join in her cetacean watches and politely informed us that there’s no such thing as ‘just a gull’ - only ‘just a dove’ apparently……. Oh and please thank her for being such a great quiz master.  On that note, thank you to Jasmine and Bella, my fellow cohorts on the winning quiz team.   Thank you also to Lewis, he too had to endure some nosy nav questions from me, and did so with huge patience and heaps of information.  His local knowledge and boat handling skills are second to none, I mean we all saw him virtually parallel park Lucy Mary with just a bow thrust nudge, it was a bit special :-)   Please also thank him for his ‘hand in pocket parking’ advice, I have spread it far and wide already and will give it go in the very near future.  And thank him for taking us to the most amazing anchorage spots each night.  Please also thank Jasmine.  She is a wonderful host, her table laying imagination, pebble work and napkin art was just joyful.  She smiled all trip long and made us all feel really comfortable.  Please also thank Bella, the perpetual cleaning machine! Lucy Mary was immaculate, always.  It was gorgeous to hear the team laughing all trip long too, mostly led by Bella, who always seemed to have a grin on her face.  And finally please thank Sian.  My goodness, can she cook! And my goodness does she work hard! Every meal was exceptional, I loved them all and to find a freshly made cake for afternoon tea each day was above and beyond,  Just brilliant. This was a huge treat for our Mum and the holiday could not have been better in any way.  Thank you to the whole team, including Emma  for whom, Mum has heaps of praise, for delivering a week that was really quite something special.  It was a real pleasure to meet you all.  Thank you.

Sarah Desjonqueres