Loch Maddy to Plocrapool

After a morning of shopping, museum visiting and blogging we left Loch Maddy at 1300. It was another cold and damp day, but with a good sailing wind and calm seas. Once again, after the sails were up, we did not need to tack, but stayed on port, with various sail sets all the way up the coast. We stayed quite close in until we got to the end of North Uist and had good views of the coast, but then we headed directly for East Loch Tarbert. Visibility decreased as we got further off shore, and thick cloud often hid South Harris, meaning we needed a compass course rather than aiming for a headland.

Our speed was generally good, with 5 knots in the gusts, and never dropping below 3 ½ knots, so it was a good sailing day. The weather was pretty dreary though. We had a lovely five minutes when we were in a patch of sun shine, but that was all.

We had been thinking of anchoring at Scoravik on the east side of Scalpay (a large island in the entrance to East Loch Tarbert), but the wind backed a little, and threatened to go round further which would have put us on a run, which is not a relaxing point of sail. In order to keep the wind more on the beam we shifted our destination to Plocrapool inside East Loch Tarbert. It looks scary on our GPS charts, but the Antares Charts surveyed it last summer, and using them took the worry out of the “uncharted rocks” danger area of our other charts!

We dropped the anchor exactly as recommended by Antares, which does feel close to the rocks, but the anchor is holding well, and it is very sheltered. Anchoring always feels like an adventure, but the Clyde Cruising Club pilots, and the Antares charts take the worry out of it.