tide by tide

Homeward bound – Kerrera to Rathlin

After three seasons and two winters based in Kerrera, we said goodbye to our highland base and headed south, the start of a 700 mile cruise home. First objective was Rathlin Island, off the coast of Northern Ireland, to visit the famous seabird reserve.

The marina in Kerrera couldn’t have been friendlier, and Gill, the co-owner, gave us both a hug as we said goodbye. With its own ferry to Oban’s shops and transport, and a good restaurant in the marina, Kerrera must be the most convenient place to keep a boat in the Highlands.

*Fuel and water tanks full, ready to leave*

On a still, sunny afternoon, Tony, David and I motored south between the island and the mainland, caught the fast south-going tide swirling through the narrow Sound of Luing past the island of Seil, then cut across the entrance to the notorious Corryvrechan tide race and whirlpools, so we could motor close inshore down the coast of Jura.

*Peter, Tony, David, with the entrance to Corryvrechan in the background, innocuous that day*

We were looking for, and saw, the house where George Orwell wrote 1984, when he lived for a while at the north end of Jura, near Corryvrechan. He almost drowned there when he ventured out in a rowing boat.

*Barnhill farmhouse, where Orwell wrote 19*84. *It is above a small bay, looking straight down the beautiful Sound of Jura.*

We decided to rest for the night at the island of Gigha, close to the Mull of Kintyre. It has a surprisingly mild climate and attractive gardens, which we visited last year, but all we needed this time was somewhere to sleep overnight

The wind veered east as we arrived, leaving the visitor buoys at the main anchorage exposed. Using our large scale Antares charts, we found Dorlinne Bay on the north-west of Gigha, a shallow sandy anchorage with protection from the north-east through east to south-west winds.

It is divided from an even more sheltered bay to the south by a sandspit, but we could see the masts of a crowd of boats there, whereas Dorlinne was empty, and we had it to ourselves, apart from campers by the beach.

*Dolphins in North Channel, photographed by David from the bow*

From Gigha, we motored on another still, calm day across the North Channel which separates Ireland from Scotland. We had the most spectacular display of dolphins we have ever encountered, with many dozens accompanying us for a while.

There were seabirds hunting in large groups and, as we neared Rathlin, we saw puffins swimming and flying.

Rathlin is shaped like a boomerang, and tucked into the inside angle is Church Bay, which has a marina. We phoned the harbourmaster who gave instructions on where to berth.

On the approach to the harbour is the underwater wreck of a British cruiser, HMS Drake, torpedoed in 1917 by a German U-boat. The captain headed the damaged ship for Rathlin, planning to beach it, but they did not quite make it. Years later, a fishing boat hit the wreck, and sank on top. Both are marked now by a cardinal buoy.

The village has a friendly pub with bar food, but we preferred the Manor House Hotel for dinner. It has a good and reasonably priced restaurant.

The big draw of Rathlin is the spectacular RSPB seabird reserve on the cliffs at the west of the island, best visited from May to July to see hundreds of thousands of guillemots, razorbills, puffins, kittiwakes and fulmars feeding their chicks. Buses from Church Bay charge £6 for a round trip to the sanctuary, 4.5 miles away. It’s walkable as well, on a road with very little traffic.

*A closer view reveals a covering of birds*

*… and on maximum zoom with a Pixel camera*

*Guillemots, the most numerous of the birds in July, with one fulmar sharing the ledge*

*The reserve extends over two rocky bays. This is the Northern one.*

*The top of the lighthouse, which is upside down, with the light at the bottom. The best views are from the lighthouse upper level – binoculars are included in the entrance price.*

Seen earlier from the sea. The mass of concrete stabilises the cliff. It’s a stiff walk up and down.

How to avoid a May heatwave

While the south sweltered in May, we went sailing in the Hebrides, where it was so cold and wet most of the time that we wore full winter thermals. That summary doesn’t do our mini-cruise justice, though, because we had some good sailing to interesting places.

We started with a vague idea of trying for the third time to get to St Kilda, 45 miles out in the Atlantic. So we planned to go to the Outer Hebrides in the hope that a weather window would emerge later in our fortnight on board, when the warm high pressure over the south of the UK moved north. In the event, it pushed a weak ridge north for the briefest of spells, then retreated again.

*The sun came out for a while in the Sound of Mull, but lots of warm clothes were still needed.*

Since it was the first cruise of the season, we drove the 500 miles to Oban, instead of taking the train, and loaded the little ferry to Kerrera with a pile of boat gear and clothes. We then spent the first couple of days fitting out Spring Fever in between the showers, before heading up the Sound of Mull in alternating sun and rain for a brief stop at Tobermory.

We were beating and then motor-sailing into a northwesterly headwind whose direction bore little relation to the southwesterly everywhere else. Sometimes the wind blows one way at the south of the sound and the opposite way at the north, as it bends round the hills.

After a night on a buoy at Tobermory we headed for Canna, the most attractive of the Small Isles, just west of Skye, on a murky morning with an initially strong southwesterly Force 5 to 6 on the beam, giving us a good turn of speed.

*Ardnamurchan* *lighthouse on the way to Canna*

As at Tobermory, we did not fancy the idea of inflating the dinghy in the rain, so we spent another night on a buoy, which sadly meant spurning the delights of the Canna Cafe’s sea-weed rich food. (Their recipe book is full of information about how to gather and cook different types of seaweed).

Next morning we left in a murky southerly Force 6 with gusts of 7 at times, with visibility down to less than half a mile, and headed north for Carbost in Loch Harport, Skye, home of the Talisker Distillery. There seemed no point in working too hard when a reefed Genoa alone got us going at 6 to 7 knots, so we did not bother raising the main.

Carbost has a long pontoon with finger pontoons attached. Facilities on them are non-existent, with no pontoon lights, water or electricity. There are showers in the village but they were out of order. That all sounds bleak, but the local volunteers who manage the pontoons are very helpful.

The village has a nice old fashioned pub, which we discovered over dinner had rather average food. During the day, the Talisker visitor centre was packed with tourists from all round the world; it sells Scotch from £46 a bottle up to £6,000.

*The Oyster Shed cooking and serving van. The big main shed where shellfish is prepared and sold is next to it.*

There’s also an expensive restaurant run by the distillery, which was booked several days ahead, and the Oyster Shed 10 minutes walk up the hill, which suited us a lot better. The owner used to run an oyster farm that was wiped out by disease, and switched successfully to retail. The Shed sells raw or cooked oysters, soft shell crab, scallops with garlic, lobsters, langoustines, prawns and kippers. We went two days running for a delicious lunch, sitting at benches.

There were bluebells everywhere in the lanes near Carbost, and we also noticed that wherever we stopped in the Hebrides there was always a persistent cuckoo near our mooring.

Finally, on a cold, damp and windy Sunday morning, we decided to wait in Carbost no longer, because the brief forecast window of good weather for St Kilda had shrunk, and was now only from Tuesday to Thursday. Monday’s weather forecast looked worse than Sunday’s, so there was no point in waiting. We needed to be in Lochmaddy on North Uist to be in easy reach of the Sound of Harris, the passage through to the Atlantic.

The south-westerly wind would be funnelling straight into the Loch Harport entrance as we left, so we had no illusions about what it would be like – banging into short steep waves, hit by strong gusts off the cliffs, of which the worst were registering Force 7 apparent over the boat. That’s a true Force 6 plus our 6 to 7 knots speed to windward. As an old but fast cruiser-racer, Spring Fever leaps into action with that sort of weather, double reefed on main and genoa.

Once we were out, and well clear of the entrance, we were away from the funneling effect of the cliffs, and we settled down for the rest of the lively 45 miles to Lochmaddy. It was another murky day with poor visibility, and we arrived at a time of sudden violent gusts. We moored on a pontoon next to the ferry terminal.

*The ferry from Uig* on *Skye arriving behind u*s.

Lochmaddy in the wind and rain is a touch bleak, but there is some grand, sweeping scenery when you can see it. The village has a marina with shower, lavatory and washing machines, a shop which also has a diesel pump where cans may be filled for boats, and a big, friendly hotel where we had dinner in the bar.

There we studied the updated forecast: that nice weather window was shrinking again. It now lasted from Tuesday morning to the middle of Thursday, when it began to break down into a rainy south-westerly 5 to 7 which would blow all Friday.

St Kilda’s harbour is a half circle bay, fully exposed from east through south to southwest to wind, waves and long distance Atlantic swells. If swells are too big, landing a dinghy could be difficult, even if the local wind-driven waves are modest. The forecast westerly swell would refract round into the bay, with 2.4 metres predicted for Tuesday, dropping only slowly the next day. The wind forecast also turned easterly after a while, far from ideal for getting back again. With the swell forecast and the continual shortening of the weather window we decided not to try, and instead to use the next couple of days of better weather to visit Barra, the southernmost of the Outer Hebrides.

*There were many dolphins in pods of up to half a dozen on the way down to Barra*

On a sunny morning with cold but light winds – the first good weather we had had – we motor-sailed 45 miles down the coast and moored on a pontoon in the marina at Castle Bay, the main settlement on the island. (Pontoons, not anchoring, were out preference this time, since Tony had a new knee and I had a new hip, both installed over the winter).

*Michael goes for a swim* *in front of the castle after which the bay is named*

The Reformation did not reach Barra, which is still a Roman Catholic stronghold with a large Victorian church, built to replace the old one at a time when Castle Bay was one of the richest and most important herring fishing ports in Britain; the bay is still lined with the foundations of gutting and salting factories.

*Water 11.6 degrees, according to the boat’s instruments*

A recent addition to the Caledonian MacBrayne fleet, the Glen Sannox, arrives from Oban. It was seven years late in construction and the total cost with its sister ship Glen Rosa was around £460 million, compared with a £100 million initial budget. Glen Sannox broke down several times in its first year and needed £3 million of repairs. Islanders are angry with CalMac and its unreliable ferries.

We left Barra on another bright but cold morning, with light winds, so we motor-sailed much of the way across the Sea of the Hebrides back to Tobermory. As we entered the sheltered bay in front of the village, the temperature shot up to the low twenties, the sun came out and we were briefly down to shirtsleeves for the first time since we arrived.

*Suddenly it’s summer, for a few all too brief hours*

Next day, we headed back down the Sound to Kerrera and Oban. On the way we were passed by two boats which we had seen anchored off Kerrera before we started out the week before: they were Mogambo, a 77 meter super-yacht belonging to Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp, and its 55 meter helicopter tender Power Play. It’s interesting what you can discover through the AIS automatic identification system we have on board.

Koum’s other yacht, Moonrise, is much bigger, at 100 meters, and it has it’s own helicopter tender. The beauty of Scotland is enough to attract the super-rich away from the Med and the Caribbean in spite of the cold, though I guess the air conditioning kept everything at a lovely temperature, so they only had to enjoy the view.

*Power Play, the helicopter carrying tender, with its curious paint scheme making it look like two different boats*

Back in Kerrera, we found the mainland temperature stilll 8 or 10 degrees higher than in the Outer Hebrides, but with the wind building and heavy rain due soon. Dinner at the Waypoint restaurant was a good way of signing off the fortnight.

LIke most first cruises after layup, a few problems were revealed. The marina will replace the unreliable bow navigation lights with new LEDs, and install a new masthead VHF aerial. The current one is 18 years old and we think it is deteriorating because performance is not as good as it ought to be. When we return in July, Spring Fever should be ready for the 700 miles back to the south coast.

*The paddle ship Waverley was visiting Oban on her regular tour of the UK , offering day trips wherever she stops. Waverley will be on the Thames for a few days this summer.*

We were disappointed that we did not get to St Kilda, but the underlying reason is that our recent cruises have been limited by many other commitments to just a couple of weeks, so our chances in any given holiday of catching a long enough weather window to go out in the Atlantic to an exposed anchorage are not that high. A lot of sailors in the Hebrides spend far longer on their cruises.

David Fairhall, 1934-2026

David Fairhall, Guardian defence correspondent, sailing author and a very good friend, died last month at the age of 91.

Below is a link to an obituary I wrote for the Guardian, where David was a senior journalist for 38 years, and a colleague for the 15 years I worked there.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/apr/30/david-fairhall-obituary?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

David lived in Maldon, Essex, and was a friend of many east coast sailors, including the cartoonist Mike Peyton, who illustrated David’s Pass Your Yachtmaster and Pass your Day Skipper. (I updated both for their most recent editions). As a young man, David crewed on yacht deliveries for Peter Haward, who wrote All Weather Yachtsman, a book whose title says it all about the kind of passage making they did.

David’s books covered a much wider range than sailing, from his first on Russian sea power to his last on US and Russian competition for the arctic as the ice melts. He covered conflict from the 1967 Six Day War through the Falklands to the first Gulf War and Bosnia.

My favourite book of David’s is East Anglian Shores, about the creeks, estuaries and harbours of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, an east coast classic that should be on every shelf.

I published a post on this blog a few years ago commemorating the 25th anniversary of a memorable Guardian Fastnet challenge in 1989, skippered by David. We persuaded the paper to finance us to charter a yacht and train a crew of novice Guardian staffers. Here is a link to the post.

A triumph for Nuovo Trionfo

I’m glad to see a famous old Adriatic trading boat, a trabaccolo, is securely afloat again on its mooring by the Dogana, the old customs house at the entrance to the Grand Canal in Venice.

In 2016 Classic Boat commissioned me to write a piece about the rescue of the Nuovo Trionfo, built in 1926 and one of very few trabaccoli that have survived. I spent several enjoyable days talking to people involved in fund-raising and repairs, inspected the boat, which had had a major restoration in 2012, and even sat in on a discussion with the deputy mayor of Venice about fund raising.

*Sunset at Punta della Dogana, with Nuovo Trionfo tucked up under protective tarpaulins*. *Photo Will Rodgers*.

I had pre-sold the idea to the magazine as an up-beat piece about a successful project. But a nasty shock came for the enthusiastic restoration team and its backers: part of the keelson – a huge timber down the centre of the ship above the keel – was discovered to be rotten and cracked and needed major repairs ashore. There were years to go – nine as it now turns out – before this could be called a successful restoration, so the magazine lost interest.

The trabacolo was repaired but that wasn’t the end of the saga. In 2020 it was only saved from sinking on its Dogana mooring by the prompt arrival of a fireboat which pumped it out so it could be taken to a yard for more urgent repairs. See this post I wrote at the time.

The good news is that from February 2024 till a few days ago the Nuovo Trionfo was ashore at the Casaril yard, on the northern tip of Venice, this time for a really thorough rebuild, which is described and photographed in detail on the website of the Amici del Nuovo Trionfo. (In a Chrome browser the translate function gives a readable account in English).

This second link is to the website of Compagnia della marineria tradizionale Il NuovoTrionfo . The spars were taken for checking to Diporto Velico Veneziano, the yacht club in Sant’Elena which organises the annual Transadriatica race.

The Nuovo Trionfo was put back on its Dogana mooring on the 20 November. As well as the structural repairs, much attractive detailing has been restored, including the pair of bright red traditional eyes at the bow.

She has been used in recent years to give tourists a short ride on the lagoon, to raise money to keep the project going. With substantial extra funding secured for the latest restoration and the boat in seaworthy condition at last, there are plans to go to sea properly, and retrace her old trading routes in the northern Adriatic.

The impressive team of Venetian traditional shipwrights and craftspeople was helped for a time by two French trainees and later by two graduates of the master shipwrights school at Douarnenez, Brittany, famous as the home of an annual traditional boat festival.

There is international solidarity between traditional boat builders, and some have many enthusiastic on-line followers. One of the best known is the complete rebuild in the US of the British yacht Tally Ho by The Sampson Boat Company. The 7 year project was led by a British shipwright who bought the damaged hull for $1.

The rebuild went viral with a huge following on U-tube that did much to help fundraising and attracted shipwrights and apprentices from far and wide to help. There’s a teaser here for amateur philosophers: every bit of Tally Ho had to be replaced in the end. Is she still the same boat? I say yes.

Tally Ho is actually on the way back to Britain where she was built in 1910. The plan is to compete in the 2027 Fastnet, the 600 mile offshore race starting in Cowes, which she won in 1927.

Spring Fever will be back home from Scotland by then. We must save the date so we can go out to watch the start. Sadly our own Fastnet race days are long over – I last did one in 1997.

Tides of history on the Thames

I’m a member of the excellent Cruising Association, whose headquarters is in Limehouse Dock, a short step from the Thames in east London.

We have regular winter talks and seminars about yacht cruising. Because of where we are, we have also had some fascinating lectures over the years about the history of our river, and its ancient and modern docks and historic shipyards.

That’s my excuse for putting a link here to a story about docklands and the Thames which I wrote a while back, after I was reminded of the old river by a visit to one of my all-time favourite pubs, The Grapes in Limehouse. It happens to be a couple of minutes walk from the CA.

Last of the summer rum

Packed up and all ready for a serious programme of overdue winter maintenance – no, not the boat, the crew. I’ve got a date next month for a new hip joint, and the co-skipper is expecting a new knee soon after.

This nostalgic third time round Britain has been really enjoyable, but that plus other outdoor sports have been taking a toll on joints. Happily, spares are available nowadays.

We hope to be fit and ready to go by the spring. With the last of the rum in the saloon locker, we raised a toast to the next season of sailing!

The long drive to Oban wasn’t wasted. We needed to be here anyway to lay up for the winter. And we did squeeze in a couple of days when the Force 5s eased down to Force 2-4. It was a chance to motor into the wind across the Forth of Lorn and up the sound of Mull as far as Loch Aline for a night on a pontoon.

We took a short stroll to the village (aided by walking sticks) and back for a drink at the nearest bar, which is in the harbour office. It is only open from 4pm to 7pm, and served by office staff, one of whom also works for a new local distillery called Nc’Nean (sic). The whisky has a clean, dry taste, and is delicious as an aperitif.

*The Loch Aline pontoon from the harbour bar*

Next morning, we left through the shallow entrance just before half tide, with about 2 metres under the keel, and motor-sailed back to Kerrera. There was hardly any wind, but the sails were up, mainly to air them before we put them away for the winter.

*Taking in the fenders as we leave* *Loch Aline*

It all rather confirmed that excessively creaky joints are a liability on a sailing boat, and that it’s sensible, and a lot safer for the moment, to postpone serious Hebridean sailing.

*The lighthouse on Eilean Muisdile at the entrance to the Sound of Mull. It was a spring ebb so there were overfalls and small whirlpools even in flat calm weather.*

Though the much anticipated autumn cruise hasn’t happened, there were compensations while laying up: the marina has a pleasant restaurant with a view across the Bay (scallops and black pudding are particularly tasty). There’s also the Oban Seafood Hut, a 10 minute ferry ride away, for the best oysters, mussels, scallops, and crabs I know of – an excellent al fresco lunch to mark the end of the season.

*Kerrera ferry at the landing* *jetty* *in Oban*

*Waiting for scallops, oysters and mussels at the* *Seafood Hut*

●While we were there, the Queen Mary II anchored for a day off the seaward side of Kerrera. It is so huge it cannot get through the ship channel into Oban Bay. There was a constant stream of launches – each with capacity for 100 – to and from the ship all day.

*Queen Mary II with the Oban lifeboat in* *the foreground*

*Passengers disembarking from a launch, Kerrera in the background*

A taste of old Scottish weather in South Uist and Mull

After cruises with perfect weather in September and May, we were bound to experience the other side of Scotland sooner or later. Rather too much of our 15 days in June was spent hiding from the weather instead of enjoying it.

The first plan was to head for Barra in the Outer Hebrides and work our way up some of the anchorages on the islands as far as Harris and Lewis.

*In the Sound of Mull, with the autopilot doing the work*

It started well, with two days of fine weather. We went from Kerrera to Tobermory, and left the next day in gentle winds for the 55 miles to Lochboisdale in South Uist, after deciding at the last minute against Barra. The pilot book says Barra’s Castle Bay is uncomfortable in strong southerlies and south-westerlies, and the (by then) forecast showed that was what we were about to get.

Lochboisdale Harbour is protected. The village has a bakery (fresh bread and cakes) and a hotel with a pleasant, old-fashioned bar and friendly landlord, but that’s about it. The tourist office that used to welcome ferry passengers from Mallaig has closed.

After sitting out a first day of heavy rain and strong winds on the boat and in the pub, the rain eased enough the next day to sightsee using a local bus across South Uist and Benbecula, the neighbouring island joined by a short causeway.

Benbecula has a fascinating landscape: it looks almost as much water as land, with small freshwater lochs dotted all over it, and sea lochs coming right inland.

On the way to the island, you can see the missile launching base and the big military radar and communications sites that are an important part of the South Uist economy.

After buying stores in the village of Benbecula we stopped off on the way back at the South Uist Museum, which is well worth a visit: it tells the story of the tough lives of the crofters, including the forced clearances in the 19th century that led many to emigrate. Now much of South Uist is owned communally by the islanders. As in Barra, Roman Catholicism survived the reformation and is still the main tradition on the island.

There’s a museum section about the island’s deep gaelic culture and the rich tradition of story telling and singing that persisted there long enough for it to be studied, collected and preserved.

It includes a touching connection with modern Scottish culture in the words of a song by Donnie Munro of the ’90s band Runrig. It’s called The Weaver of Straw, and is about Angus MacPhee, who came back to South Uist so traumatised after serving in the army in WWII that he never spoke a word for 50 years. His sole pursuit was weaving straw into familiar and fantastic shapes.

After three nights sheltering in the very well protected Lochboisdale marina, we decided to go back to the mainland. It was clear that in two days time another series of depressions was going to pass close to the outer Hebrides so we’d just find ourselves stuck in the next anchorage north.

So we sailed back the 60 miles to Loch Droma na Buidhe (a.k.a. Drumbuie) on the mainland in 9 hours, averaging nearly 7 knots, with the wind on the beam, the fastest point of sailing, with intense small showers scurrying across our course and occasionally catching us. It was much the best sail we’d had all year.

After anchoring for the night in peace and quiet we sailed 5 miles to Tobermory for a pontoon berth. There were strong winds forecast right through till Saturday night, so there we stayed, taking the opportunity to see some of the island and do outstanding repairs and maintenance on the boat.

*Tobermory Bay from the bus across the island*

*We went by* bus to Calgary Bay *for a walk. There is an excellent ca*fe tucked away, *and an interesting arts centre with a sculpture trail*

We *twice went in the rain to* an 80 seat mobile cinema which was in Tobermory for a week. It is in a *truck* that expands sideways like an accordion.

When the rain cleared and the wind eased for a few hours on Sunday we had a sunny morning sail 15 miles down the Sound of Mull to Loch Aline, which is pretty and sheltered.

*The head of* *Loch Aline before the rain and wind*

Plans to go for a walk ashore were abandoned next day in heavy rain, because we’d be soaked in the dinghy. So we stayed at anchor a second day and night, read, played backgammon and watched old iPlayer and Netflix downloads.

Loch Aline is pretty, sheltered and has a thriving village near a quartz sand mine, which is used for making high quality glass. It’s said to be the only sand from an underground mine in Europe. Quartz is a valuable material and the tonnages aren’t large, so the facilities aren’t intrusive.

*Sand is loaded onto ships here in Loch Aline*

*The waterfall to the left of the* *ruined* *castle in the Sound of Mull is one of the ‘Widows Tresses,’ which fly back up the cliff into the sky like fountains, in strong west winds – I’ve seen them do it.*

*Nearing Loch Don: Duart Castle at the south end of the Sound of Mull*

From Loch Aline, we sailed a gentle 12 miles to Loch Don on Mull, a good place for watching wildlife. The channel into the loch is narrow, muddy and winding, almost like a Suffolk river. Once in, it is well sheltered. We anchored overnight in the deepest pool in the loch, all of 6 metres, which makes it unusually shallow for Scotland.

*Catching the last of the sun in Loch Don*

*The hills of Ross of Mull from Loch Don*

Our last anchorage of the cruise was Puilladobhrain (Pool of the Otter), a delightful, small stretch of shallow water sheltered by reefs and islets.

It is also one of the most popular anchorages, not least because of the lovely half mile walk over a low hill to Tigh an Truish, a pub and restaurant next to the Bridge Over the Atlantic, the old stone bridge connecting the island of Seil with the mainland. We found what we thought was the last space to anchor, until 4 more boats brought the total to a dozen.

*Spring Fever anchored in Puilladobhrain*

*The Bridge over the Atlantic,* *whose slim arch can* *take* *the weight of* *heavy* *trucks*.

The forecast for the following day and the rest of the week was bad, with Force 6 and 7 mentioned, and gale Force 8 expected for a while. It was also forecast to be very wet.

So after lunch in the pub, we sailed back to our base in Kerrera to pack up ready to go home a couple of days later.

Actually, we haven’t done badly at all in our time here if we look at the bigger picture. Since September, we’ve been on board nearly 40 days, and there have only been about 8 or 9 with bad weather. They have all been in the last fortnight, but that still makes a pretty good overall score for holidaying in Scotland.

Prize blog

Pleased to say I won Cruising Association/Practical Boat Owner prize for the best short photographic blog in 2024. The blog was about our cruise from Cowes to Oban via the Orkney Islands.

A three page extract appears in this month’s Cruising magazine, covering the passages from Pin Mill near Ipswich as far as Wick. Cruising is published quarterly for the CA’s 6,000 members.

The very welcome prize is a year’s subscription to PBO, the magazine that gives less space to test sails of new yachts that no-one I know can afford (I’m referring to Yachting Monthly) and a lot more space to useful information about maintenance and DIY problem solving.

The sun shines on the Hebrides

The West of Scotland had the best weather in the UK in May, for the whole 18 days we were there. Bright sunshine, blue sea and mainly light north and east winds were ideal for checking out new anchorages and visiting old favourites, several of which we’d have avoided in any other kind of weather.

*Not the deep south but Loch Moidart – another sunny meal in the cockpit*.

After fitting out for three days in Kerrera Marina, we spent the first night in Loch Droma Buidhe, near the entrance to Loch Sunart.

*Sunset in Loch Droma Buidhe, protected by the narrow entrance in the distance*.

The next day we explored Loch Sunart, picking up a buoy at Salen for a lunch stop, and then to Loch Teacuis for the night, which branches off Sunart. Teacuis has a difficult, rocky entrance but opens up into a beautiful sheltered space, surrounded by woods and hills. It is close to Droma Buidhe

*Anchored in Loch Teacuis* *for the night*

Next stop was the lovely little island of Canna in the Sea of the Hebrides, timed for the Canna Cafe. Last year we arrived on a Tuesday and found that was closing day. (This year, Tuesday’s a pizza night). There’s a delicious and inventive menu, featuring seaweeds in all sorts of combinations with fish, vegetables and meat. The chef’s Canna Cookbook is a big seller which recently we saw displayed prominently in Waterstones, but we took home a copy from the café and plan to try out its advice on cooking seaweeds.

*My sp*icey egg laksa with dulse (a seaweed) croquettes and kelp. The starter was fritters of kelp with another plant called sea spaghetti (because that’s what it looks like).

From Canna we made a lunch stop in the spectacular Loch Scavaig, which is surrounded on three sides by the dramatic Cuillins of Skye, mountains of modest height but tough reputation, which rise from sea level. The Cuillins include 11 of the 282 Munros, hills over 3,000 feet, which keen walkers in Scotland spend many years ticking off on their maps. The Pinnacle in the Cuillins is the only Munro where ropes have to be used.

*Michael went for a swim in the sheltered loch Scavaig, though at 12 degrees it wasn’t for me.*

We spent the night in Loch Harport, after beating 20 miles up the coast in an unexpected Force 6, which was dropping off the Cuillins on an evening that was probably much calmer everywhere else. Loch Harport was serene as soon as we entered. It is home to the Talisker distillery.

*The Cuillins in early morning as we left Loch Harport*

Next to see was the beautiful Loch Moidart on the mainland, last visited by us in 2013 and inaccessible if there is strong onshore wind or swell.

*Spring Fever* *is anchored* *in the distance*, *just in front of the small island* *in Loch Moidart*

*The castle, which is connected to the land by a sandy causeway carpeted in samphire*

*Spring Fever at anchor* in *Loch Moidart*

A local sailor said Richard Branson’s sister owned Shona, the largest island in the loch, which has a mansion with guest houses scattered around it in the woods and by the shore.

After a week away we spent the night at Tobermory for fuel, water, groceries and a shower, and then enjoyed a gentle day-long motorsail in light winds round the west of Mull. We went past Fingal’s Cave on Staffa, through the Sound of Iona, passing the Abbey. For photos of both see last year’s cruise book.

Next stop was Loch Ardalanish, on the south coast of Mull, which we would never have attempted without the excellent Antares large scale modern charts. They are an absolute essential for any Scottish cruise, and we first used them in 2012.

Just like off the Cuillins, the wind suddenly rose to Force 6 in the lee of the hills on our way along the coast, so we were nervous as we battled through the narrow rocky entrance – only to find a magical calm as the lay of the land entirely protected the little bay.

There’s room for very few yachts to anchor comfortably but luckily we were alone. There’s also a second even smaller branch of the loch right next door, where another yacht spent the night.

Next day we tried another complicated rocky entrance, using Antares, when we motored into Inner Loch Tarbert, which took us to the centre of the island of Jura.

After a good night’s sleep we went down the Sound of Islay with the tide, then inshore of the Ardmore islands, carefully following the Antares chart. The short cut looks too difficult on any other chart. That night was the only uncomfortable one, spent on a buoy outside Ardbeg distillery on Islay, where a nasty little chop made the boat rattle and squeak all night. (We skipped the distillery visit).

With the wind in the north, veering east, we headed for Loch Stornoway, on the mainland just north of Gigha, because it is perfectly sheltered in these conditions (but badly exposed in southerlies). The Admiralty chart labels the loch as dangerous because of the extensive reefs in the entrance, but Antares charts show a simple way through, and once inside the loch it is broad, shallow and sandy.

*Looking back at the entrance* reefs *from Loch Stornoway*

We were so relaxed on a sunny evening that we just put out the usual 4 times depth of the chain, and had a harsh lesson as a result: there was a sudden short blast of wind from the east at 1am that ripped the anchor out of the sand. We should have been more alert to that risk after the two previous unexpected strong winds, neither of which had lasted more than an hour.

I’ve never seen an anchor drag so far, so fast and – luckily – so noisily. We doubled the chain length and went back to bed, checking regularly for the rest of the night. But Spring Fever did not budge another inch.

It’s a warning for the future: even in benign conditions, Scotland can produce blasts of wind. It has prompted us to extend our ground tackle before we sail again. (We had 30 metres of chain plus 50 metres of rope, but have since doubled the rope length. A racing hull cannot take the weight of chain in the bows that many Scottish cruising boats have).

Finally, from Loch Stornoway we went to the delightful island of Gigha, with its temperate climate warmed by the Gulf Stream.

*…the lovely Achamore Gardens, with restoration now well under way..*.

*…a sheltered Gigha mooring in everything but easterlies*….

*…and lunch* *at the Gigha* *cafe*. *There’s also a well-regarded restaurant, but it isn’t* *open early in the week*.

We didn’t stay the night at Gigha, deciding instead to go back to Loch Stornoway for its perfect shelter from the forecast northerly to easterly breeze and also to be 8 miles closer to home for the next day. Needless to say, we put out a lot more chain.

We motor sailed up the Sound of Jura, through the Dorus Mor tidal gate against a fading neap ebb tide and then north up the Sound of Luing – ferociously rough places in bad weather because of their fierce tides, but benign that day.

We gave the infamous Corryvreckan between Jura and Scarba a wide berth, though at neap tides its famous whirlpool and standing waves would be absent, and I suppose we could have gone through if we had really wanted to.

We were back at base on Kerrera by 7pm, ready to pack up and go home. The weather broke the day after we left!

Another year in Scotland!

After planning a two-year round Britain cruise, we’ve just decided to make it three.

The more we plan, the more we find there is to see, so why rush back 700 miles to Cowes this year when we don’t have to? We’ll spend the extra time seeing more of Scotland, and head back next year.

Kerrera Marina, across the bay from Oban, will remain our base.

Planning 2025: which islands?

The days are longer, the pilot books have been taken off the shelf, and it’s time to think of this year’s cruise. As a first step in planning, there is nothing better to browse than Hamish Haswell-Smith’s Scottish Islands*.

Haswell-Smith has visited and written about the geology, people and history of every Scottish island, 169 in total by his definition.

The book includes brief mentions of safe anchorages, though not with the essential details of a pilot book or chart. His mission mirrors and complements that of Bob Bradfield, with his personally surveyed Antares Charts of 755 Scottish anchorages.

Haswell-Smith is an excellent preparation ahead of reading up the practical details with our copies of the Clyde Cruising Club pilot books.

With five seasons sailing in Scotland so far, we still have many island omissions, of which the most glaring is the long chain of the Outer Hebrides. We’ve called there only once, mooring for several days a few years ago in the marina at Stornoway on Lewis, where bad weather gave us time to explore by bus before we left for Orkney.

The sensible advice given at the Cruising Association’s excellent Celtic Day meeting in January was that firm plans are a bad idea, given the unpredictability of weather. We’ll decide where to go when we are on board, forecast by forecast, and of course tide by tide.

However, in the right weather, the Outer Hebrides from Mingulay and Barra up to North Uist are where we’d most like to cruise, so that’s what we are reading about at the moment. A secondary objective is to visit the west coast of Skye.

A gleam in the eyes if we are fortunate enough to have a good weather window is St Kilda, 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides.

A much less ambitious subsidiary plan is to visit Canna any day of the week from Wednesday through to Monday: when we arrived last year on a Tuesday we discovered that was the closing day of the much-praised cafe-restaurant.

We have an extra consideration when planning, with neither co-owner in the first flush of youth: creaky joints.

I enjoy the peace of being at anchor. At the seminar I detected a slightly negative view, which I used to share, of those who seek out marinas, pontoons and official moorings.

However, we do not have an electric windlass, which is quite hard and expensive to fit on an old cruiser racer design. The arm-powered anchor winch is the best we can do. It makes sense not to push our luck and our joints too hard. While anchoring is always an option, buoys and pontoons will also be welcome when we find them.

*The Scottish Islands, Hamish Haswell-Smith, Canongate, £40

How to cope without paper charts

UPDATE APRIL 2025

After centuries of printed maritime chart publication in the UK, the options are shrinking rapidly. Until this month it looked as if they would all soon be gone after Imray said it was ending paper chart production – though there is now a reprieve after the announcement of a joint venture with the Austrian cartographers Freytag & Berndt.

Good luck to them, and let’s hope it succeeds. But the precariousness of the paper chart business suggests that a wise owner should still prepare now for entirely electronic navigation.

Luckily small craft can learn a lot from the all-electronic bridges of big ships, which have been paperless for years. That seems to be where we are all headed in the next few years whatever happens to paper charts, which for most people I know are now relegated to passage planning and rarely updated.

I’ve collected and updated material from previous posts in a new note, because events have been moving rather fast.

Here is a link to the note.

In search of real seafood

It’s often surprisingly hard to find truly fresh local seafood along the British coast, even though we’re avoiding fishing boats and dodging crab pots all the time.

Prompted by the splendid seafood shack by the Oban ferry terminal, which we’ve visited multiple times on each of our three round Britain cruises, I’ve started this little list of worthwhile places. Suggestions welcome.

Postscript – Autumn sun around Mull, Ulva, Coll, Tiree and Treshnish

After waiting all summer for summer, it finally arrived in Scotland last week, with sun, light winds, and calm blue seas.

*Heading across the Firth of Lorn past the lighthouse to the start of the Sound of Mull*

We were back for the first time since late July. The wind was generally from the east, so it was a good week to see the little islands west of Mull – Treshnish, Ulva, Coll and Tiree, plus a night in beautiful Loch na Droma Buidhe and another in a sheltered gap in the rocks near Iona called Tinkers Hole. For this week, captioned photos tell the story.

Slowboat Round Britain – Kerrera, Spring Fever’s home for a year

We left Tobermory on a grey day, with wind blowing from dead ahead along the Sound of Mull and rain clouds chasing each other across the sky. It was a wet and blowy last 25 miles to our destination, the island of Kerrera on Oban Bay, where we’ve rented a mooring for a year.