Lochboisedale to Loch Maddy

The wind was still blowing hard when we woke this morning. The 07:10 forecast sounded hopeful but we had a lie in and then pottered about waiting for it to sound better. There was one essential job to do before we could leave. On the way out of Eriskay the gaff outhaul had chafed through. When we got to Lochboisedale I checked the gaff and the end plug was loose so I pulled it off. Yesterday we found some PVA in the shop so I glued it back in and tensioned it with gaffer tape. This morning I took the gaffer tape off and the glue seems to have worked a treat. I untied the broken outhaul line and brought it below. We had only lost about 18" so I cut, heat sealed and served the broken end and all was good.

I didn't want to just tie the sail back on, if the line chafed once, it would do it again. I found a piece of threaded rod - the same as I used to bolt the spar end to the gaff. It fitted the hole in the gaff perfectly, tapping itself in. I cut it to length and screwed it in, using the mole grips to twist it. About 3/4" poked out each side to make a cleat. I wormed the thread on the ends with serving twine and parcelled them with gaffer tape and served them with tarred marlin. That made a nice smooth cleat that will not slide or put load on the inside of the hole.

The wind was still blowing but I took the sail cover and ties off so I could raise the gaff a few inches and tied the outhaul round the new cleat. We were a sailing boat again. We got the No. 2 jib on and untied the two extra shore lines so we just had bow, stern and springs. We were being blown strongly onto  the pontoon.

There is a weather station on the internet quite near. It was reading 12 mph gusting 18. We seemed to be in a blowy part of the island. We debated with the boat next to us - they were off to Barra via Eriskay. About 12:30 we decided to poke our nose out. Our berth companion did a sterling job of pushing Robinetta away from the pontoon as we motored out. In the outer loch we turned towards the wind to raise sail but had to wait a moment to let a fishing boat in and then raised the deeply reefed main.

Outside it was fine. The wind blew mostly west giving us a nice close reach. The seas were really slight. Throughout the day we had periods when fronts went overhead and the wind got flaky but mostly we had a really good reach at 4 1/2 to 5 knots. It went light enough that we shook out some reef and tied the bottom hoop back on and fitted the No. 1 jib but the gusts were strong enough were were both happier leaving some reef in.

Ushenish Lighthouse plagued me for what seemed like hours. It felt like we couldn't get past it. We dropped below 2 knots and then got back up to 4 but we still seemed stuck. It just took patience though and once past we picked up speed again and had a fantastic sail with plenty of blue sky between the cloud fronts. The coastline is quite fine along both Uists but very flat past Benbecula.

As we neared Madagh Mhor I looked to find the entrance to Loch Eport - the stone circle we walked to is at the head of the loch. The entrance is invisible until it is abeam and then it stands out clearly as a complete hole in the coastline! Madagh Mhor itself is an impressive site. Almost vertically sided on the west and sloping on the east.

We lost the wind as we neared it and went between it and the mainland under motor. Once through and round the headland we were perfectly head to wind and had just the right amount of time to drop the main, shake all the reef out and flake it nicely on the boom for once.
 

The ferry startled us a bit, deciding to leave just as we approached the harbour, but it decided to take the other channel out. Both visitors moorings were taken but there was plenty of space on the brand new pontoons. A lady from another yacht took our line as we moored - they had seen us in Canna but came straight to Loch Maddy and have been here ever since.

It was about 8:30 pm. We were both too tired to want to explore so Alison stayed outside to put covers on and I cooked. The cupboard was a bit bare but I suddenly discovered I was making pipperade so I looked for some fish to put in it. Alison remembered she had bought a tin of eel in some kind of sauce. It made a delicious slightly Chinese tasting anti-pasta which we followed with penne pasta in tomato and wild mushroom sauce (courtesy of Mr Grossman). I had a bottle of Skye Red ale and Alison had red wine. I think we set a better table than some establishments, even when the larder is bare!