Yesterday, neither of us had any appetite for sailing in the rain. But we knew today wouldn't be perfect for heading north. The Inshore Waters Forecast had been for north or north-easterly winds but not much of anything and Windy had said there might be some big gusts on the nose.
But all the forecasts agreed it would be dry. I wanted to start early and we got off the pontoon at 7:25 in brilliant sunshine and a glassy calm.
Passing the houses by the shore south of the harbour made me think of the houses on the islands on the west coast of Greenland we had seen a year ago on Tecla. It's a very similar landscape.
The population of the highlands is tiny compared to 200 years ago before the clearances but still large in comparison to Greenland. The village of Gareloch is bigger than anything we saw in Greenland outside the 'cities' of Nook and Ilulissat. Of course, Gareloch relies heavily on the tourist trade, just like Greenland.
We motored out past ship island (Longa) and got a much stronger breeze than I had been expecting. It was north-easterly but had enough east in it that we could sail by heading a little out to sea. There were many crab pots but at least the ones we saw were well marked. As we left Loch Gairloch we were doing over 4 knots with an arrival time of around 5pm but that soon dropped to 2-3 knots.
The weather was really clear and we could make out the Shiants and the north of Skye and the hills of Harris and Lewis. We were sure we could see further south past Skye to the Uists too but I'm not certain. It's hard to get a good sense of scale at that distance.
Most of the time, the chart plotter predicted we would get to Ullapool in daylight. But sometimes in the lulls it was way out to the small hours! But the sailing was so nice we didn't mind. We were really happy we'd had the day ashore yesterday. The views north towards Assynt are spectacular. Those are very tall mountains.
The patch on Worm was working too. Every now and then we pulled her close to check no water was coming in.
Windy had predicted more wind later in the day and so it proved. By the time we were passing Loch Ewe it was time to put a reef in. We weren't going very fast over the ground because the wind really was coming from where were were trying to get, but it was too strong for comfort with full main. This was also the time of day of the strongest foul tide. On the north side of Loch Ewe we found we really couldn't make any headway at all. On one tack we were being pushed into the loch and on the other we were being dragged back towards Skye!
We could have anchored to wait for the tide but, as usual, we just put the engine on and motored to Greenstone Point. Once we were no longer embayed, we could turn the engine off again and sail into Loch Broom. That was our last tidal gate of the voyage!
I feel a little guilty we didn't take pictures in Loch Broom. Hopefully we will get another chance. The views, especially to the south and east are very special and different to any that can be had from the land.
The south side of the outer loch isn't very easy to work out what's where. Of course its easy with the chart plotter but I still had some difficulty matching the entrance to Little Loch Broom on the plotter with what I could see on the water.
By 6pm, the wind was dying, and even shaking the reef out couldn't make our predicted arrival time earlier than about 10pm. Alison had phoned the harbour and we knew we were expected so that wasn't a problem but we realised we had a mutual desire for some chips! I found that the Seaforth chip shop is the latest opening and it stops serving at 9pm. Time for the engine! In fact, the wind died completely less than 1/2 an hour after we started the engine so we didn't lose much sailing.
We'd been told to go onto the hammerhead as they weren't sure how much space there would be in the visitors area but as we came in we were guided to a finger. We tied up quickly and the engine went off at 12 minutes past 8. Plenty of time to get to the chip shop!
Only 2 miles from our final destination of Johnson and Loftus' yard.
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