Wet

Day came and yesterday's strong winds were but a distant memory. We had had a really quiet night and this morning was calm and pleasant.

We had a lazy morning showering and having breakfast at the shop and cafe at Tayvallich and catching up with the blog, etc.

The Navionics charts on my tablet suggested an evening trip to Ardfern would catch the tide and we contemplated a walk on the Taynish peninsular but the clouds came down and neither of us really fancied it.

Back on board Alison used Reeds to check my tidal estimate and came up with a much earlier departure time so we got ready and went. There was not a breath of wind. Half way down Loch Sween it started raining. From then on we got anything from light drizzle to heavy rain all the way without a breath of wind.

Near the MacCormaic islands and again by Carsaig Bay we saw porpoises, just for a moment.

We both wanted to take a look at the entrance to the Crinan Canal, me because I'd only seen it leaving on Bonify last year and Alison because she hadn't seen it before. It was also a place Robinetta had been twice before, back in 1938. As we got near, the clouds came lower and lower until the visibility was about 100 m. We went into full fog mode with double lookout, life jackets and 4s blasts on the horn every 2 minutes. We never saw or heard another boat.

The ground level cloud persisted all the way up Loch Craignish. It is at times like these that we really know how lucky we are to have GPS. There was never a moment of concern over the course, even though each time Alison took here eyes off the plotter we went wildly off track.

It cleared a little as we got to Ardfern. We found the buoy we had been allocated quite easily and picked it up. We were absolutely sodden.