Last day in Stornoway

Stornoway is a great place from which to explore Lewis, so we hired a car yesterday while Robinetta sat in the marina, sporting a few new patches of grey metallic primer. She is looking much shabbier this year than last, mostly because we did not have enough time to get her ready. Hopefully the grey metallic will stop water getting under more of the paintwork and increasing next winter's work!

After getting back from our road trip we used the car to go shopping, and to fetch diesel from a local garage before returning it.

Today Julian totalled up our three week trip. Robinetta (and Worm) have travelled 282 nm in 91 hours under way, 32 of those with the engine on. We only made one passage on engine alone - the short hop from Kyle Rhea to Loch Hourn. We did motor sail now and again but unlike last year, most passages were sailed. We spent 8 days ashore either stormbound or sightseeing. Despite the weather we made full use of our time and achieved all our main objectives.

We had been planning to leave Robinetta in Stornoway Marina. I had phoned and checked that there were no rules on how long visitors could stay since I did not want a repeat of our Bridlington fiasco of last year! They had been fine with it, but now we were there the marina attendants wanted to know who would be keeping an eye on the boat, as it was not their job. This seemed odd, boats are left in marinas all the time! We had made a few friends on the pontoon, with Julian helping out with computer type stuff, and so we asked if anyone knew someone who could keep an eye on Robinetta to keep the marina happy.

We were introduced to Ken Linklater who runs the local moorings society, and he suggested that we might be better on a mooring belonging to a friend of his. The boat that normally used that mooring would be elsewhere for the month that we needed it, and it was in a well sheltered part of the harbour. The owner had dived on it to check it in the spring, and Ken gave us very detailed advice on how to approach it and which bit of the bay to stay clear of. Perfect! A wooden boat is always better on a swinging mooring than on a pontoon, as the drying effect of the sun is spread more evenly.