Kyle of Tongue

 We had a more peaceful night in Talmine Bay than Alison feared but this morning the wind was getting up and the forecast was for stronger east winds. Talmine isn't the best anchorage in the Kyle for easterlies. Scullomie is recommended. It's on the east and although it looks OK at high water to go straight there, the charts don't say what the drying heights of the sandbanks are. It looks like the latest Antares charts have the anchorages, but not necessarily the passages between them. Ours are older and don't include the Kyle.

So we motored out passed the Rabbit Isles and back round. 

We had a go at fishing but didn't catch anything.

As we neared the anchorage, but still couldn't see it, Alison asked me urgently to open the starboard fuel tank tap.  I wasn't quick enough. The engine died and wouldn't restart.

We had emptied the port tank.

*******

We got the mainsail up, deeply reefed, and Alison pottered about while I went down to bleed the engine.

Luckily, that sorted it.

I'll leave it to your imagination how we felt about running out of fuel with a perfectly good full tank when we had checked both the previous day and discussed opening the tap on the starboard one.

Scullomie turns out to be delightful. It's an old drystone harbour, built to ferry people to the ships during the clearances. It's ruined near the entrance but the skerries outside provide good protection from the swell and it's in the lee of the cliff to the east. Perfect for today.

And you can see the phone mast on the hill. Great for my tutorial.

We got ready to go ashore for a walk. But I kept hearing the bilge pump. At first it seemed like the float switch was stuck, but then the outflow fell to a trickle.

A bit of wire wool had got stuck in the pump. For a while it seemed the pump was damaged, but eventually it started behaving normally again. Whew.

We got our walk. We met Charlie, a local retired fisherman. Lovely chap, helped us secure Worm so we would be able to get her once the tide came in.

Grand views and lovely walks in the glen by the burn. We played pooh-sticks.

Robinetta in the distance

View of the Rabbit Islands

Robinetta at anchor at Skullomie

Walk up the Glen

Skullomie Harbour