We’ve done our main delivery trip: after passing Cape Wrath, Spring Fever is now cruising among the lochs and islands of the west of Scotland on the way down to Oban, which will be the boat’s home for a year.
There are hundreds of anchorages and dozens of harbours, with shelter from any given wind direction always in reasonably easy reach. We’re no longer trying to maximise the sea miles every day and are looking instead at a less strenuous 30 to 50 miles a day.
We began in the North Minch, a sea area protected from the west by the outer Hebrides islands of Lewis and Harris, though even in calm weather swells still arrive from the north from far-away winds.
We arrived in Lochinver after a pleasant sail past the Handa Island bird reserve and the looming cliffs of Stoer Head.
Lochinver is an important fishing centre, with big wharves and warehouses. It’s also in a beautiful loch with the stunning backdrop of Suilven and surrounding mountains, which have featured in many a calendar and tourist brochure.
There is a hotel with a bar, a restaurant, a cafe, a chandlery and a leisure centre, as well as a small marina.
In Lochinver, we spoke to the owner of a ketch which had just been towed in by the lifeboat after the steering had broken. He made a Pan Pan urgency call, an alert to his problem rather than a Mayday call for help. But the Coastguard and the RNLI decided it was safer to fetch him in than leave him wallowing in the swells off Handa Island trying to make repairs.
Next day we left in the rain for Loch Ewe, after phoning the famous Inverewe gardens to check where to land in the dinghy for a visit. They confirmed the pilot book advice to anchor in a little bay called Camas Glas near their jetty.
They asked us to make sure we don’t leave our dinghy where it can get in the way of launches if a cruise ship comes in! There was a modest size cruise ship anchored in the deep part of the loch – a couple of hundred passengers maybe – so we were relieved to see in the morning that it had left.
tide by tide 
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