What a brilliant day!

The sun was bright and clear with barely a cloud in the sky. At 8am when I was cooking breakfast the air temp was already over 11C; mid March! It was like a summer morning. 

Breakfast consisted of toast and boiled egg washed down with loads of coffee. It set us up for the day and picking a gap in the gusts we reversed out of our temporary berth and headed out into Loch Shuna.

Stowing the ropes, of course, I found the missing mast car clip under a roll of mooring rope. At least we now have a spare. The fenders and ropes were all stowed, Linda had a fresh cup of tea; it was time for some sails.

We hauled up the main to make sure it was all rigged correctly, but then dropped and stowed it. With the wind blowing consistently 15kn and gusting up to 30kn from the SE we decided just to fore-reach all the way up through Cuan to Karrera. With the Genoa out we finally got to see the refurbished RR Genoa. It looked fantastic and the new suns-trip in beige really looks great. Owen Sails, as ever, did a great job for us.

We were making 7kn NW across Loch Shuna under bright blue skies with just the foresail set and the boat looking great and sailing brilliantly. We turned up towards Seil and, with the wind directly behind us, we were fore-gybing back and forth through Cuan Sound. We caught the current just starting outbound on a very low tide and we could see all the rocks and reefs that usually skulk under the surface. Linda was worried about the swell as we left Cuan and headed for Easdale but it was very gentle, comfortable and a brilliant first sail of the season.

As we turned round Easdale, we could see all the way up the passage to the lighthouses at the base of the Sound of Mull. Behind us Hebridean Isles was chasing us and managed to undertake us before we got to Karrera. 

Throughout the whole sail, the sun was bright, the sky was shiny blue, and the water was whipped with little white caps skirting the tops. We sailed east of Insh Island and after we were north of the island, we were making 8.4kn northbound towards Karerra.

The sail was relatively smooth, there were a couple of vicious gusts but it was all plain sailing and just when we were getting into it we were blasting between Bach Island and Karrera and then in the lee of the island we were slowly reaching towards Oitir Mhor Bay.

We dropped anchor on the east side of the bay, just south of the house and lay out in the cockpit reading our books all afternoon. When the heat went out of the sun (around 4pm) we went inside and I cooked a sausage casserole and baked potatoes for dinner before watching crappy television and listening to the wind gust outside.