NW Scotland to Stornoway
Jammy Dodger
Neil Martin
Mon 5 Jul 2010 17:40
Wednesday 23 June.
Rotten forecast for the passage over to Lewis, WSW F5, on the nose! Decided
to head down the NW coast instead to Loch Inver, another old fishing
harbour. We were nearly out of gas, luckily Sarah got a lift from the local
shopkeeper to a garage a couple of miles away where she got a refill. £25!,
but no way can we survive without a regular brew up.
Cracking close hauled sail 32 miles to Loch Inver where we moored up just in
time to get to the local pub for the England World Cup game. Very
interesting "Fish Harvesting" station on the quay. Twice a day, big boats
would come in with 85 tons of live farmed salmon, 15,000 fish. These would
be transferred down 300mm diameter pipes to the killing and bleeding
station, then packed in ice and transported by a fleet of lorries to the
factory. Two shifts of 14 people would take 8 hours to process each load.
Thursday 24 June.
Set off for Stornoway, 37 miles. Strong F5-6 winds on the nose. Lively sail
with two reefs in the main and reefed jib. George was regularly getting 8+
knots along with good wetting for the crew. Accompanied by a pod of dolphins
for a while. Wind eased as we came into the shelter of Lewis. Stornoway is a
lovely historic harbour, where we rafted outside a yacht and fishing boat on
the tidal quayside. We were given a bag of fresh scallops by a local dive
boat that we allowed to raft up inside us, made a great starter (thank you
Nick), followed by an Indian curry ashore.
Friday 25 June.
After checking with Neil, Jan gets hauled up the mast to take down the B&G
sensors to repair the faulty connection. The connectors were corroded inside
with broken pins, so the connector was cut off and the wires connected
directly and soldered before sealing up. Now works perfectly.
Goodbye to Sarah, Nick and George who are flying back to Manchester, via
Glasgow.
