Loch Aline to Oban

Towards the entrance from the Anchorage, Loch Aline

After a very peaceful night at anchor we prepared to leave in a leisurely fashion. Julian wanted to haul the anchor up before breakfast, but it was still 08:30 before we were motoring slowly towards the entrance. There was a little wind coming from ahead, so we got the main sail up with the hopes that we could sail once we were in the Sound of Mull. The forecast was for an easterly 3-4, becoming variable 3 or less, Easterly was not a perfect direction, but perfectly usable with the tide in our favour.

Our hopes were fulfilled, and by 09:10 we were sailing at 3 knots with the engine off, aiming across the Sound. One of the reasons we had pushed on to Loch Aline yesterday was to have a short trip today. Robinetta felt perfectly balanced, and the scenery was superb. Julian went below to cook, and then passed up a plate of egg, bacon, haggis, black pudding, tomato, and potato scone. There can be few better places to eat such a feast, with the sailing so easy we could let go of the helm to use our cutlery.

Of course, there was that "becoming variable" in the forecast, and our speed dropped as the morning wore on. By 12:10 we were being carried purely on the tide, and since we were approaching Lismore it was time to get the engine on to give us steerage way. Under sail we had settled on passing between Lady Rock and Duart Point, but with the engine on the most direct course to Oban lay between the Lismore light and Lady Rock, so we changed course, and were made immediately aware of the strength of the tide.

In order to pass through the center of the channel we had to aim at the light house, not at all in the direction we were going. The ferry and fishing boat that came past during this maneuver did not seem worried by our apparently aiming at them, even when we suddenly sped up to 5 knots. They must be used to leisure craft doing odd things in the area!

The absence of wind made the tide rips little more than swirls in the water, and the potential overfalls were only visible when the ferry wake crossed them, but the chart is littered with warnings!

We were moored on a pontoon in Kerrera Marina by 14:00, right next to a pretty gaff yawl. Her owner came over when he spotted us, and Julian recognised him. We had last met Robert in 2015, at the East Loch Tarbert traditional boat festival. He had been sailing a 2 1/2 ton Hillyard then, but had rebuilt Sula, his current boat, from a wreck. His work had so impressed other wooden boat owners in the area that he was now working almost full time as a shipwright.

We tidied up Robinetta and Worm, before catching the 16:00 ferry from the marina to Oban. Our train was at 18:11, and we were home by 21:30. It seems quite odd to be able to sail in such a lovely area so close to home.

Loch Moidart to Loch Aline

We had a very peaceful night and a mostly dry one. The morning started bright but overcast but there was a little wind.

Over on the shore by the road, I counted three tents. It seems to be quite a popular wild camp site. I did a little exploring by Google Maps. The road runs along the River Sheil and about an hour’s walk along the road would get one to a bus stop. Of course, the campers were here with their vehicles. The castle is accessible across the strand at low water and there are 360 ° photographs on the Map.
 
We should have done some exploring ‘IRL’ – in real life! But last night it was wet and this morning neither of us seemed in the mood.
 
When I first looked, at high water, the water was completely still. Unfortunately, it was very polluted, a horrible brown sludgy film surrounded the boat. After a while it started moving, initially towards the shore by the road, and then more out past the castle. The currents here are complicated as the water can get out south of the castle, between the castle and Riska, between Riska and Shona or even between Shona and the mainland, depending on the state of the tide. It can also come in all those routes and additionally fresh water comes in down the River Sheil and the River Moidart.
 
I cooked breakfast and we hauled the anchor up and left. Hauling immediately after eating is not a good idea. It took both of us in turn to get the job done. Next time we will eat afterwards.
 
A light breeze was coming into the outer loch. It felt like it should be on the beam once we were on route to Ardnamurcan, so we got the main sail up.
 
The next loch along to the west, and the only one before Arnamurcan Point, is called Kentra. The name felt strangely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. On the chart there is a narrow entrance into a wide bay, but the bay dries entirely. The internet yielded the probable reason for the name’s familiarity. There is a lovely classic yacht with that name.
 
Kentra is an anglicisation of Ceann Traigh. Ceann is of course the word for head or end used all over the place, including in our own house-name Kenmuir. Online dictionaries suggest traigh can be used in several ways including beach and seabed. In modern Irish tra is the word for a beach. The word is probably the same as the Germanic equivalent strand. I don’t know if traigh is a Viking loan word into Gaelic, or an older similarity going back to Indo-european. Ceann Traigh is used in three ways here – the settlement of Kentra, Kentra Bay – the drying part of the inlet, and Loch Ceann Traigh – the navigable entrance.
 
The ebb had some power in it, adding a knot to our speed. Over on the land, the skies were clearing. It was going to be a nicer day than forecast.

 When we’ve passed before, we’ve been well out to sea. Coming from Moidart give a very different view and the lighthouse is initially seen through the rocks from the land side. We passed close in. More yachts than we have seen at sea all summer were either leaving or entering the Sound of Mull. We weren’t the only one with sails up, but everyone was motoring.
 
Heading into the Sound the wind started to pick up. It was right behind us. We let the main out and set the preventer and it was doing something but not enough to turn the engine off. Then it came in a little more strongly from the beam and I put the jib out and throttled back. We were sailing! We were managing 2 knots so off went the engine.
 
The wind came and went and veered and backed but we managed to keep the speed up in the 1½ to 2 knot range nearly all the way to Tobermory. It was warm and not quite sunny but there was plenty of blue sky. The views into Loch Sunart were especially fine. This was the kind of gentle pleasant sailing in glorious surroundings that one dreams of. We tried fishing but didn’t catch anything.
 
From the lighthouse north of Tobermory we motor-sailed. There was still wind, but we had around ½ knot of foul tide and we would not have got to Loch Aline before dark without the engine. We could have stopped earlier – in Tobermory or Loch Sunart but I wanted to be near Oban in the morning to be in a position to get the train home in the evening.
 
Alison telephoned Kerrera Marina and booked us in to leave Robinetta there.
 
Heading down the Sound of Mull, we saw a yacht coming up. I said – “there is a ‘not white’ boat”. Alison said “I think its wooden and it might be a gaffer”. She was right. A lovely gaff cutter called Alice of Penrhyn.

 
Half-way down Alison spotted a big oil tanker coming behind us. We were right in the middle of the channel, taking the best line towards Loch Aline. We headed over to the edge of the channel on the Morvern side to let it pass.
 
On the way to Loch Aline we were passed by a yacht called Hot Toddy, they took our picture and we exchanged waves. They went into Loch Aline too and went onto one of the pontoons.
 
We headed up the loch to the anchorage area. On the way I saw a gannet diving so we put out the fishing line again and caught two fine fish. That was supper sorted!

 
There were many boats on moorings and at the pontoon but only one other in the anchorage area and we anchored without problems. I cleaned the fish and made a fine supper of sauteed potatoes with garlic and pan-fried fish with onions and tomatoes (and garlic). I turned the pan juices into a little sauce with wine and flour. Delicious! Thanks are due to the crew of Suzelle, who gave us the bottle of wine back in Gairloch.

Mallaig to Loch Moidart

We arrived late to Robinetta last night. The train should have got into Mallaig at 23:39, but was delayed so did not get there until 00:05. It was not actually raining, but even in August nights are chilly around Midnight, and the air was damp. Multicoloured lights projected onto the cliffs behind the marina offered a patch of cheer, and Robinetta’s LED cabin lights are not bright enough to show how grey the white cabin paint looked as we got the sleeping bags out and fell into bed.

We woke earlier than expected, with bright sunlight flooding through the port holes in a welcome change to the forecast grey. We took our time getting up, but it was just after 8 when we headed for the shore heads, stopping to pay our marina fees on the way. We were told that the harbour chandlers did not open on a Saturday, so we would have to get our fuel in cans from the garage, which did not open until 10:00. Luckily the Co-Op opened well before then, so we were able to get provisions before heading back to the boat for the fuel cans.

After a chat with our pontoon neighbours in Tzatziki we headed back ashore to pick up pastries and coffee from the Bake House for breakfast. We also bought fresh bread from there before getting our 17 litres of fuel from the filling station. Once that was in the fuel tanks we got Robinetta ready to go, only just remembering to fit our new radio before turning the engine on.

Getting the electrics right for the radio took a while, and they were not right when we backed off the pontoon to leave Mallaig at 11:40. We either had the radio or the chart plotter… by 13:00 normal service had resumed. The new Standard Horizon radio has its own GPS so the extra electronics board Julian fitted in 2017 has finally been removed. Not that I expect it to stay gone. The new power connections need refining, and our forward facing depth gauge can not work without that board. The quick fix depth gauge I screwed at the stern has done us for several years now, and we may never go back to the NASA system despite its “new” transducer.

Leaving Mallaig

We were making for the head of Loch Moidart which is only 18nm from Mallaig so we were not in a hurry. As soon as there was a hint of wind Julian got the main sail up. There was barely enough of a breeze to give us steerage way, but we pretended there was and turned off the engine while we ate lunch. After that clouds began to cover the blue and it seemed like a good time to put our oily trousers on. It began to rain, and Julian went below for a nap while I helmed for the next hour.

No wind appeared with the rain, so when Julian came back on deck we decided to get the main sail down before we began picking our way through the rocks and sand bars off Loch Moidart. The shear size of Eilean Shona between the North entrance and the South entrance into Loch Moidart makes it seem like the two are not connected, and from our navigational standpoint they are not. We were aiming for the south of Eilean Shona and the Clyde Cruising Club pilot describes this as one of the most complicated entrances in the area. Having a chart plotter in the cockpit makes pilotage much easier that having to constantly identify islands to take bearing on. The CCC did have some essential advice and a chartlet that let us identify Eilean Raonuill and make sense of the chart plotter display. There were seals hauled out on Roanuill, but the tide was pushing us past the island with its leaning identification pole and we took no photos. After picking our way past other smaller rocky islands we were in the loch and pilotage meant avoiding a sandy spit, which had useful islet called Sgier na Claidheamh acting like marker buoy for its south end before he headed north again toward our chosen anchorage near Riska Island.

As we approached Riska we saw 3 Canadian style canoes, and certainly felt like a worthwhile place to explore that way. Riska is an almost perfectly circular island, totally overgrown by trees, and it looked as though no one had set foot there for years, with fallen trees in the gullies and no obviously landing places. We were at the top of the tide, and there might well have been sandy beaches to land on at low water, since we had to cross a bar to the north of the island which mostly dried at low water springs.

Castle Tioram on the right, Riska on the left

We reached the anchorage at 18:00, and I laid out 33m of chain as we were in 11m of water. It was deeper than we prefer, but the best spot to avoid possible cables on the sea floor. It began to drizzle as I dropped the anchor, and it set in for the evening, so rather than rowing across to look at Castle Tioram we retreated into the cabin for the evening.

Castle Tioram from the anchorage

Christine Thain Award

 At the end of June Julian and I got an email from Richard, the organizer of the Portsoy Festival. It contained the following text

"Christine Thain Award

"As you may remember, at each festival an award is made in memory of a great supporter of the festival, Christine Thain. The award is for; just being the best boat at the festival in the eyes of the Maritime Co-Ordinator, i.e. me.

"This is not for the cleanest, oldest, shiniest, etc. etc boat, its purely for the boat that I thought was just a wee bit more special than all the others, for the story behind it, and its crew.

"You may not have noticed me, but I did go around and look at all the boats, and where possible chatted with the owners, albeit a bit more briefly than I’d hoped (that was going to be my job for Sunday).

"This year’s winner is the boat Robinetta. She’s a really pretty boat, and one that sails regularly and is very well loved and used. (This coming from someone who drives a 30 year old car every day, which is also well loved and very used). The crew write about the boat and their adventures and really promote the beauty and experiences of life with a  boat that has seen many a tide and port through its life.  I’ll be in touch with the owners to ship the award to them."

 We  received the award in the post today, and were totally bowled over. 

Thank you very much, Portsoy. We really enjoyed our time there and this clock makes a lovely memento.