Slowing right down

abandoned village on the Treshnish peninsula

Our 2 night stay in Tobermory was used to be true tourists, rather than sailers. On Friday night we went to two concerts and a Ceilidh, and really enjoyed all activities. Getting to our walk required us to get a taxi at 07:20 (the only time one was available). Luckily the Tobermory Stores opens at 7a.m. so we could buy pies for our packed lunches. The walk was great, but really tiring, and we were given a lift back to Tobermory by another couple who had been on the walk with us.

Waking up this morning took a while, and the overcast then rain did not encourage us to move. We had hoped to sail to Coll and anchor, but with gusts of 30knots forecast for Tuesday morning we had already decided against that. Today we might had sailed to Ulva ferry, a much more sheltered anchorage than Coll, but in the end we left Tobermory just before noon, and sailed back to Loch Sunart.

We had a lovely reach over the Sound of Mull and past the Little Stirk cardinal, but then the wind faded away and we were only making half a knot under sail. No problem, this was the perfect time to heat some pies for lunch. The wind even obliged us by increasing once we finished our pies and let us sail into the Loch.

The problem was that the wind was very gusty, 20 knots one minute, and 2 the next, which made helming rather challenging.

Julian had a look at going into the anchorage at Loch Teacuis, but by the time we got to the entrance channel it would be close to low water, and this
channel is less than ½m deep in places. Instead we headed back to Loch Drambuie. There were already 5 yachts at anchor on the south side of the Loch, but we were happy to anchor near to the same spot we had left on Friday. We will probably be here 2 nights, sheltering from the Met office’s noon forecast of SE force3-4 increasing 5-6 later, with force 4-6 still blowing tomorrow.