Skullomie Bay to Scrabster.

Today’s forecast was a much more reasonable one, with S or SE 4-5, variable 3 or less until later in the West (our area). Yesterday evening, with strong winds still obvious in the anchorage, I had let out another 10m of chain on top of the 20m we already had out. We lay to it peacefully all night, but hauling it all in took Julian a while, and the engine was well warmed up in the 20 minutes it took him. We don’t have a windlass, let alone an electric one, and at times like this it feels like we are missing one.

We were clear of the anchorage by 07:50, and by 09;00 we had motored out of the Kyle, going through the sound between the mainland and Seal Island. The wind came in perfectly there, and the engine went off to let us sail on a broad reach at 4-5 knots on a flat sea. We had the no.2 jib up, and Julian decided we would be better with the no1. Changing jibs took time as we needed to re-run the furling line for the Wykham-Martin gear, but once that was done we we sailing along perfectly balanced.

Unfortunately the wind died at 10:25, and the engine went back on. George went on duty to steer us straight, and stayed on the helm as we passed Strathy Point. At 14:35, when the wind came back from ahead, he was relieved by Julian, who reset the sails and turned the engine off.

The float switch worked to turn the bilge pump on at 10:05, 12:57, 15:30, 15:45, and 16:04. The last three were worrying close together. We were hard on the wind, with a reefed main sail, but by then we were following the curve past Holborn Head into Thurso Bay and it was time to put the engine back on to get the sails down and enter Scrabster Harbour.

I called up the Harbour Master, as requested in the pilot book, and he said he would find us a place on a pontoom. Ten minutes later as we entered the inner harbour he called us up to apologise that there were no empty berths, but told us to moor up against a survey boat on the hammerhead. This was perfect for us, and we were happy with his choice.

The harbour mast was very obliging, giving us the key for the ladies loo (the gents was already open), and the code to get into the shower room. A single pound coin gave 10 minutes of hot water; very good value for money!

There were a couple of places by the harbour we could have eaten, but we walked into Thurso for the evening since we were meeting our son Alex from the train at 22;20. After a a quick bit of shopping in Lidl we had a pleasant meal in a Sri Lankan restaurant, a walk by the river, and a dram in the Station Hotel. It was then time to collect him. We did not want to walk back to Scrabster with his luggage, but luckily the only Taxi waiting at the station agreed to come back for us after taking their pre-booked passenger home, and we were aboard Robinetta by 22:50.

Robinetta was designed to take 3, and with the table relegated to the cockpit there was plenty of space for the 3 of us to sleep. Julian and my clothes bags ended up in the sail locker, but one of the advantages of the new deck is the whole of the cabin and forepeak is dry. No need to worry about rain leaks!