A relaxed trip from Loch Laxford to Loch Beag

The anchorage in Loch Laxford gave us a beautifully peaceful night. I had moored Worm alongside before going to bed, and heard nothing from her. I am not even sure we swung to the tide since Julian had set the crab pot at Robinetta’s stern, held down by the dinghy anchor, and I suspect it acted as a stern anchor for Robinetta as well. It caught several crabs, but they were much too small to do anything except set them free in the morning. The dinghy anchor came up very muddy and it needed a good dunking and a scrub to get rid of all the gloop.

We decided to leave at around ten, and spent an hour doing some basic maintenance. Julian re-served the forestay where the stay sail foot rests on the wire splice, and I threaded the parrel beads onto a new piece of rope to attach to the gaff saddle.

I had set the anchor last night, and offered to start hauling it up. Julian had been doing the honours so far, but it seemed sensible to share the chore. Rather than putting the chain straight down the hauser I planned to lay it on deck and rinse it off first. This worked well, and the anchor was all the way up before I realised it, leaving Julian on the helm for a change. Several buckets of water later the anchor and chain were clean, and drying on deck.

There was plenty of water to take a short cut out of the anchorage, and we were soon motoring out into Loch Laxford itself. The weather was very grey, without a breath of wind but as Robinetta began to feel the swell at the entrance to the Loch Julian suggested we should raise the main sail before it got any rougher.

Port Tarbet in the approach to Handa Sound

There was certainly more swell than we had expected, and the course Julian had decided on threaded through some quite narrow passages. We decided to go outside Handa instead of inside, but as we approached it we could see that visibility was poor beyond it. Julian did a quick check, and we would be going through Handa Sound at slack water if we headed inshore, so we decided to do that. Visibility was still hazy, but we got a good view of the mainland, despite the haze. This was an excellent decision, and we motored through the Sound in flat water, getting a great view of the island.

The weather was brightening up, and we threaded our way into Badcall Bay in sunshine. We were not planning on stopping, just taking our time getting to the Kylescu narrows so as not to have too much tide against us as we went under the bridge.

As we left Badcall behind the day began to get really hot and bright, and I suggested we take the main sail down to protect it from UV damage. The weather gods then laughed at us, and produced a sailing breeze within the hour.

We raised the main and sailed slowly (2.5knots) into Loch a’Chairn Bhain towards the Kylescu narrows. Julian commented that this was what we did it for. Sailing through beautiful scenery in lovely weather. England might be baking in 38°C, we had 20°C at most, but it felt joyful to change from jeans to shorts and hoodies to T shirts.

We had to put the engine on to get through the wind shadow of the Kylescu narrows, but we had judged the time well, and there was only 1 knot against us which we could easily overcome. Once past the Old Ferry Inn the engine went off again and we sailed slowly along Glencoul towards the anchorage at Loch Beag. 

 By the time we reached it the wind had died almost totally, and we explored this under engine, finding the depths very different to those on our charts. Eventually we settled on a spot in just under 3m. I paid out the anchor, but Julian was not happy as we fell back on the chain to only 1.5 m on the depth gauge where he felt we were stirring the mud. I hauled up again, and we motored into deeper water (4m). I let out 25m of chain, expecting a 3.5 rise of tide.

The heat had gone from the sun by the time we anchored, and we went into the cabin to spend a quiet evening after a day of very slow sailing/motoring in a lovely area. Tomorrow we need to be away by 6am, to get back through the narrows before the tide is too strong against us.

Loch Beag anchorage at the head of Glencoul