I have been to Jura before, for the music festival a number of years ago.

However, that’s another story which involved a scabby old caravan to sleep in as there was no other accommodation that night, a very expensive hotel the next night which I happened to get locked in while Iain and Gordon went to a party on the island till five in the morning with “Beastie” the coxswain of the Port Askaig life boat.

As I say that was many moons ago and I was young and daft then. Come to think of it, the only difference is I’m not so young now. Ah! Memories.

 

          The sea plane at Oban                                                     Heading South

  

                Krystal looking good                                       Picking Kevin up in the dinghy

 

Ashore in Craighouse

The weather went a bit pear shaped on us in Portree.

You might remember we went there with the purpose of picking up a pilot book so as to head out to the Outer Hebrides. Well, that never happened. There was a gale forecast a couple of days later and had we gone out that way we would have been stuck there for a fair bit of time.

I know there are worse places you could be stuck but when you go out that way your only choice of overnighting is by anchoring. This could also have been ok, but it wouldn’t be my first choice in that kind of weather. So, all change, we decided to make our way back “again”, but this time with the intention of going to some of the other Islands I haven’t been to before. Well, not quite true, I have been to them, just not sailed to them.

We left Portree and had a great sail back to Mallaig, a nice force four all the way. It’s quite a sight sailing under the Skye Bridge, past Eilean Ban where Gavin Maxwell lived with Midge the otter and wrote Ring of Bright Water.

We only spent one night in Mallaig before going to Salen again.

 

Kev cleaning Krystal’s Gel Coat

Editor’s Note  nice to see the skipper taking his turn, I remember it was usually me

We were meeting up with our friend Kevin who was out with Steve, his friend from America. We stayed in Salen for three nights to allow the gale to pass. Not that it lasted that length of time, but after that kind of wind the seas are pretty rough so it’s best just to sit tight for a day or so to let things calm down. Steve had to get back to N Ireland so he left us on the Monday and the rest of us decided to make our way there as well via Kerrera (again), Jura, Islay and then Rathlin Island, my 1^st sailing footfall to Northern Ireland.

While in Salen, Gordon got his fishing rod out. Now to let you understand, Gordon it the type of person who kills nothing, flies, spiders, any kind of beast, we even have a boat spider that I have to live with. I think he has a bit of the Buddhist Monk about him. Anyway, here he is catching a mackerel.

  

He was just about to let it go however, I think if you go to the bother of catching it you must eat it, there the problem begins, I certainly couldn’t kill it but equally so neither would Gordon. There were a couple of men at the end of the pontoon also fishing so I ran along and asked one of them if they could come and kill it for us….…how embarrassing. Anyway he did, Kevin gutted it and we had it with some lemon juice and salad as a starter that night ……..delicious.

From Mallaig we went to Kyle of Lochalsh where we went for our usual curry.

The Indian restaurant there is great. We stayed there one night, which brings us to today, the 11^th August.

We sailed round to Plockton which is meant to be a beautiful wee place……. I would tell you if I could see it, but at the moment it is absolutely chucking it down and I ain’t getting into a dinghy and rowing across to see it for anyone. As soon as it stops raining I’ll let you know what it’s like.

    

We didn’t get ashore till the next day which is today. However, before that Gordon had the pleasure of unblocking the heads. That’s the toilet for anyone else. It blocked last night but it was too late to sort it out so I’m afraid it was back to basics and the bucket came out….. bucket and chuck it as it’s otherwise known.

  

Anyway, we eventually got ashore and yes, it’s a lovely wee place. Not much going on, but very picturesque.

 

  

Off to Skye tomorrow to pick up the pilot book. Let’s hope it’s stopped raining by then.

Bye for now ………………….

We wanted to go to the Outer Hebrides so we had to head up the Sound of Mull again and into Tobermory. I’ll tell you, if I don’t see Tobermory again it will be too soon, I feel like I know it like the back of my hand we have been there so often. Anyway, from there we went out past Rum, Eigg & Muck, and made our way to Canna.

 

Leaving Tobermory (again!)

 

Canna in the distance                                                   Rum off to starboard

 

North Western end of Rum                                  Sanday & Canna Approach

 

Canna is stunning

   

Our first trip ashore

We think this is our favourite place so far. You would think someone had turned the clock back many many years. There is no pub, no shop to speak of, no phone signal or Wi-Fi, just a beautiful wee island. Actually it’s two islands, Sanday and Canna but they are joined by a bridge. The shop I mentioned is a community shop selling fresh eggs, homemade cake milk and some other basics and is run on an honesty basis. If you buy something, you put a note of it in the book and leave your money in the honesty box.

We stayed here a couple of days and went walking. There are some lovely wee bays with gorgeous white sand, unfortunately we didn’t manage to go in for a dip, and being the Atlantic the water was a bit chilly

  

   

There are loads of seals, one of which comes out to all the boats when they come in and moor up. It just sits there, looking up at you waiting for you to throw some titbits in for it to eat. Gordon has named him Seal Diamond, which he thought was really funny – Gordon that is, not the seal.

 

   

We decided to drag ourselves away from Canna and thought we would head out to Barra. There was only one problem, our pilot book for Skye and western Scotland doesn’t include the Outer Hebrides.

Now we could just have taken a chance and used what we had available for navigation, but not having been there before, and given that we want to go to some of the other islands out that way, we decided to head back in a bit and try and get the pilot book for that area.

Easier said than done. Our best bet was Mallaig. One of the farmers on Canna very kindly phoned the chandlers in Mallaig but they didn’t have one. To cut a long story short, we headed to Mallaig and phoned Gael Force chandlers in Inverness who are having it delivered to Colin the Harbour Master in Portree , Skye for us on Tuesday.

We headed back up to the boat and have just been pottering around as we were having my sister Diane up for four days and it was easier for her to get to Oban rather than us heading out to any of the Islands, so we hung around here till she joined us.

   

She had never been to Mull, so, off to Tobermory we went again.

 

We then headed up and around to Salen in Loch Sunart.

  

Walking up to the hotel for tea

 

If you are ever out that way go to the Salen Hotel and get their fish and chips; honestly it’s the best fish and chips I’ve tasted.

After Salen we headed  back down the Sound of Mull  heading for Lochaline

 

after a bit of sunbathing, where we were treated to Diane’s cooking.

 

The guy in the rubber suit was back in the water again , at least the wet suit was on the right way round this time!

Next stop was back to Kererra for a Ceilidh.

It was West Highland racing week and a Ceilidh was put on for the racers.

We thought it was going to be a wild night but most of the racers were older than us!!! so it didn’t really get going,lol.

 

 

We had a great four days and a good laugh and would you believe it the weather was fab, not that it was forecast to be, but we were really lucky and the sun shone the whole time more or less. You are welcome anytime Wee Betty AKA Diane. It was a real bummer you had to go……………………

 

We are still in Kererra at the moment.

After Diane left us, another friend of ours, Caroline, came up to see us for two days. Unfortunately, some bad weather was forecast so we didn’t manage to get out for a sail but we did walk round the island which is about 10k, so we weren’t idle.

 

As yet only part-time cruisers and softies.

Given that the weather forecast in the North West was apparently looking grim for the coming weeks, we searched the internet for a week in the sun.

We got a good deal on a lovely villa in Kefalonia with a great view and its own pool. Heaven.

Little did we know Britain was to get a heat wave starting that week . We flew out of Manchester in 30 degrees , lol.

      

I know its a hard life

The weather as  promised did worsen and we had a wet sail down the mull back to Kerrera  where we could leave the boat and get the bus back home to Glasgow from Oban.

 

The isle of Mull ferry steaming past us down the Mull

  

A dreich  couple of days in Kerrera

Heading home was an embarrassment !

Honestly, you should have seen us. When we loaded all our gear onto the boat, we had taken it all by car and left all the bags at home. We didn’t have a holdall between us and ended up going home by bus with two big IKEA bags full to the brim.

It was like the Clampits  day trip to Glasgow from Oban. I was even more mortified when we got off the bus at Anniesland Cross at rush our on a Friday night in case any of my old work colleagues saw us !

 

                  Home at  last                                                               Garden Done !

While we were home we managed to get the garden done, not that our friend Iain hasn’t been doing a great job cutting the grass and looking after the house for us.

It was lovely to meet up with Joe & Kevin and their new crew Jamie.

 

Tobermory Harbour

 

Camira all spic and span

We had a few drinks . It always seems to be Tobermory that entices us to have a few too many.

Last we were there, Gordon fell overboard the next day, he still insists it was nothing to do with the night before. However, we managed to keep ourselves in reasonable check so as not to have a repeat of that.

  

Kevin, Joe & Jamie moved on to Salen, but we decided to have another day or two there and go for a few walks and of course update this blog

The weather was looking a bit miserable and unsettled for a while so we managed to make arrangements to leave the boat back down in Kererra for a couple of weeks and headed home.

We sailed further up the Sound of Mull to Kilchoan, another place I haven’t been.

 

Gordon’s Church from the Sound of Mull.     Kilchoan Bay, Camira in the distance.

My friend Sheena has a house there which we eventually found after an encounter with a few pigs.

  

We only stayed the one night as Sheena wasn’t there and we were heading back over to Tobermory to meet  up with our friends Kevin and Joe who were out on Joe’s boat for a trip.

From Port Appin we moved on to Lochaline.

 

It’s the 19th of June. As you can see the sunny weather gone – but better sailing though.

We ended up here for a while as they promote three days for the price of two. They also now have a great new shower block.

   

The estate at the head of  the loch

It wouldn’t be us if we didn’t have some sort of drama. Gordon has been foutering with the rigging since we left Largs, he doesn’t think the tension is right and has put it up, down, and up again. I happened to notice another wee Moody 31 (same type of boat as ours) which had come into the marina. I mentioned to Gordon to go and speak to them and see what their rigging was like.

Now, Gordon is a bit unusual, he is one of these people who takes his glasses off and puts them on the top of his head to see things??

So there he is, chatting to the people on the other boat and leans back looking up at the rigging, next thing, “Splash”. Off pop the glasses and down they go. I suppose I should be thankful that it was just the glasses and not him this time.

As it happens, I had been chatting to Ivan who works at the marina earlier and he happened to mention that he scuba dives. I had also been chatting to the guy who was installing the Wi-Fi at the marina and mentioned that Ivan might be taking him for a dive.

(Editor’s note – she does a lot of chatting you’ll notice!)

So, I got a hold of Ivan’s number to see if he would mind having a look for the glasses at the same time. Would you believe it, the guy wasn’t even working that day and he said he would be down in five minutes. Next thing, here he comes all kitted out with the gear on, suit, mask, tanks and flippers and in he goes. Two minutes later he appeared with the glasses.

Just goes to show there are some really nice people out there. That night we invited Ivan down to the boat for a few refreshments and left a wee bag of goodies for him at the marina office by way of a thank you.

Next day I decided to keep Gordon away from the water and took him on a ten mile walk.This he managed to do without any catastrophes just a couple of blisters.

   

We did quite a bit of walking here, in fact ten miles one day, so the exercise regime is doing not too bad between walks and cycling. Why am I still not losing weight????

Editor’s  note , this is why ! 

                           

Gordon hasn’t been in church except for weddings and funerals since his Boys Brigade days. However he was so taken with this wee kirk and a 1st world war poem inside that he e-mailed the minister. What’s more the minister e-mailed him a very nice reply the very next day.

 

It’s now the 23^rd of June and we are just waiting for a bit of bad weather to pass and we will be on our way again. Not sure at this point where, but will check in soon and let you know. I’m now off for a wee glass of wine and to watch a film.