Southbound into the Minch.
Before I post my blogs about our 4-day car ramble around Lewis and Harris I want to bring you up to date on our fine voyage south from Stornoway, firstly to a night in Loch Scresort on Rhum and yesterday back to Loch Aline, one of our favourite safe anchorages on the Scottish mainland. So here is the story of the first part to Rhum.
On July 3rd, at 16.10hrs the wind veered north from west; I know because I was lying on the port side saloon berth watching the wind indicator at the top of the mast, just what we had been waiting for. Tomorrow would be our day.
We had no idea we were in for such an amazing crossing of the Minch in which Zoonie and the Diva (the multi-blue cruising chute, with a mind of its own) had a fine time working together for a few hours as we approached the Shiants, a group of islands much loved by sea-bird life.
The Minch can be daunting in fair weather and a nightmare in strong winds and more; but just like our crossing of the Australian Bight, we were blessed with fair sailing winds and in both locations we loved watching the Diva swaying gently from side to side and pulling Zoonie on an even keel through the water.
Ahead we saw much white water spurting upwards and scanned the chart for overfalls. Well, the exploding white water turned out to be the familiar sight of gannets fishing and what a spectacle they were, darting, surfacing resting on the water as they swallowed their catch.
Guillemots and puffins stayed on the periphery, not wanting to get too near those incredible beaks as the gannets dived like streaks of fork lightning.
On VHF Channel the silken voice of the lady from Stornoway Coastguard advised us to change to channel 64 for the latest weather update and I can guarantee we will never hear the Scottish dialect spoken more beautifully. Her voice was a pleasure to hear. The visibility description ‘poor’ just tumbled gently from her tongue with a roll at the end like a tiny burn on a summer morning.
We had 85 miles ahead of us, but with the long daylight hours and fair weather for two days, we were in no particular hurry, just letting Zoonie do her best with the available wind.
As the wind backed to just south of west, too far forward for the Diva, we helped her off stage and out went the white sails, working nicely together.
Our afternoon’s entertainment included an air sea rescue helicopter training exercise sending a winchman onto first the ferry and then a cargo ship; and the wonderful sight of adult seabirds with this year’s young nearby. Guillemots with their pair of young, teaching them how to live on the ocean; just like we watched last year along with the tragic fall-out from the bird flu. None of the latter so far. Hopefully they are recovering and the population of sand eels will have increased from its dip to provide enough food.
Thus, we minced across The Minch and had the rugged west coast of Skye to admire all afternoon. Passing by Loch Dunvegan where we had visited the Castle, seat of the Clan MacLeod, and with Neist Point and lighthouse on our port beam, we remembered sitting atop the rocks overlooking the lighthouse below while we ate our packed lunch, still wondering if we would make it to the Outer Hebrides.
Although a return to Canna might have been an enjoyable idea as we love that place, we were going to arrive very late and knew that now the summer season is well underway it would be very unlikely to find an available mooring buoy and, as we have found before, Zoonie’s anchor does not hold in the deep kelp that carpets the harbour floor. We have never used the fisherman’s anchor and it seemed late at night would not be the best time to play around with it!
Also, to venture in and have our thoughts confirmed would add another hour or so onto an already long day passage, so we sailed past and onwards to Loch Scresort on the east side of Rhum, with Kinlock Castle at its head.
So, into The Sea of the Hebrides Zoonie pressed on. Late in the evening a family of dolphins came along and had a wonderful time playing around Zoonie’s bow with two humans leaning over the handrail watching with big smiles and some calling from the smaller of the two!
I said the daylight hours last well into the night, but as it grew darker, I noticed my usually sharp long-distance sight was being challenged and I just hoped it would hold up for our entry into the mooring field, where we knew there were 10 buoys and if they were all taken, the anchoring was a good alternative option.
With the wisdom of hindsight and following our track marked on the chart plotter, after our previous visits, we turned into the bay to an array of masthead anchor lights. Rob counted them, up to 8, and then as we moved closer the outline of one more came into dim view. Gently forward, slow down, gently reverse to stop her, Rob hooked up the line and we were secure for the night at 11.23pm after 17 hours of what this life is all about.