Sailing north?

Weather reports are essential when planning a day's sailing, so we turned on our brand new radio to get the 2210 weather update last night. The problem was, we could not hear anything! We called up the coast guard for a radio check, nothing! So now we needed to work out why.

We have a brand new radio (which we had never tried before), and newly connected antenna up the mast, but we also had our spare radio antenna inside the cabin, which we knew worked from that position with our old radio. The old radio had been left in the car at Cairnbaan. The first question we asked ourselves was why neither of us had thought to do a radio check at Cairnbaan! No answer to that one!

We hooked up the old antenna to the new radio, and had no luck with that set up either. Refitting the old radio seemed the best idea, but it was in the car four miles away, and it was almost certain that its power lead had made its way into the bin by accident.

Julian got up early and walked back to Cairnbaan along the tow path, which since it was a bright (but chilly) morning along a scenic bit of countryside was not a hardship. He drove back, bringing the radio with him. The missing power lead did not turn up, but the manager at Crinan boatyard found an old spare for a nominal fee. He also told us that the Crinan basin was a well known radio hole, and offered to do us a radio check on his hand held. It worked. The new radio picked his call up on both antennas.

Panic over. We retrieved Worm from behind the lock master's office and locked out of the Crinan basin at 0930 into a flat sea, with bright sun overhead, and no wind.We did bend on the jib and raise the main mid morning, but there was not enough wind to sail, and we soon took them down. We carried the tide nearly all the way, taking full advantage of the favourable flow through the Dorus Mor and the Sound of Luing. By 1800 we were moored up at Tobermory, having motored all the way.  Not a bad first day of the season at all.

Photo by Stu and Sue from Esseness