Martin and I had a great evening in Loch Bay with the music and voices from the pub drifting across to Misha on anchor and a sunset of biblical proportions filling the world with a myriad of vibrant hues. We slept well and awoke refreshed to a generally damp day. We certainly weren’t going to need sunscreen today and we weren’t going to need to reef either.
The St Kilda fast rib which works out the Bay left before us on the 60 mile (2 hour) trip out to the archipelago and went by us as we were weighing anchor. We motored out the Bay a lot slower then they did and headed west across to the south of Isla Island.
We motored through the narrows in very damp conditions and very little wind and rounded Dunvegan Head. There we got a little breeze so up went the full sails and we did make an hour or so under sail before it died again.
Rounding Dunvegan Head Martin spotted some Jetsam on the shore which appeared very interesting but we didn’t have time to go and explore and had to push on.
Rounding Nest Point was the most Westerly of our trip. We were originally planning on another night on Skye or Canna for Tuesday evening but we found out during the day that no one had any Camping Gas available and we were starting to run low and that Cafe Canna was closed on a Tuesday.
We made the decision to push all the way to Tobermory knowing it would be late by the time we got there. McGochans said they would feed us as long as we were seated by 08:30. It was going to be close but achievable.
Throughout the trip we had multiple dolphin pods zooming and jumping around us but not hanging on to play. After Canna we had a super-pod, perhaps the congregation of the pods we had noticed previously. At one point there were dolphins from the edge of vision one way to the other. They were all leaping and zooming at high speed. We were amongst them for about an hour.
South of Canna, we were able to get the sails up again but it was a mixture of sailing at around 4 kn and motor sailing at 6. With a hard stop for dinner in Tobermory we had to make a decent amount of progress or we would miss it.
As the sun dropped we observed multiple cumulous nimbus clouds and could watch them dumping their load in spectacular fashion on the horizon then, as we approached Ardamurchan one decided to get us. For about an hour it was torrential and we could barely make out land as we entered the Sound and motored to Tobermory having lost all out wind as we approached the lighthouse.
In the Sound it was very wet and murky and we could see some spectacular lights ahead. It ended up being one of the huge cruise liners anchored up. She was too big to get in Tobermory Bay and was actually anchored in the Sound.
We berthed perfectly in Tobermory and Martin ran up to grab our table while I finished berthing Misha and sorting everything out. We had dinner, beers, some whisky, rum and coke and then went on a pub crawl to the Tobermory Hotel and the Misha as well.
As we were walking back there was music in the Aros Hall. It was ‘Ally Bain and Friends’ I managed to talk us in for the encore and we were able to hear two songs then wandered back to McGochans Bar and absolute Carnage!
76 miles, 14 hours