Conectivity. 57:53.72N 005:09,51W.

The Round Britain Experience
Tue 24 May 2011 16:59

May 20th ~Tobormory to Kyle of Lochaslh.

Dropped our mooring at Tobermory at 0930, rather sad to see the very pretty port with its rows of brightly painted houses along the harbour front slowly pass astern, as we escorted the Caledonian Macbryne ferry round the headland out into the waters to the south of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Spent a couple of hours trying to pinch the south westerly wind to get round Ardanamurchan Point at the northerly end of The Sound of Mull, before turning north towards The Isle of Muck, the misty shadows of Eigg beckoning further to the north. The wave patterns became more lumpy from here northwards making for uncomfortable helming and accompanied by Duncan’s entreaties ‘not to play about with the wheel so much’. I found the passage past Eigg stunningly spectacular with its broken fields and dainty white dispersed houses dominated by the prow of the red granite cliffs above, almost leaning over the small harbour at its eastern shore. Saw no movement across the island with the exception of wheeling seabirds and the shadows of the clouds between the heavy showers which chased us from the south. The wave motion became more aggressive from astern as the afternoon passed, the rather regimented housing patterns of Mallaig seemed to take an age to pass, the only contrasting angle being the line of the ferry as it approached the town sitting below the smudged green slopes above it. Increasing serious mountain vistas emerged in the east as the cloud dispersed along the coast, the upper snow covered slopes and cliffs of Ben Nevis reminding me of the times I used to spend on wind blasted wintry Scottish mountains as a preparation for silly adventures abroad – until I knew better. We had planned to spend the night at anchor at the top end of Loch Hourn but retreated in the face of the violent katabatic winds which greeted us in a very unwelcoming fashion about two thirds of the way down the loch. Decided to head north to the Kyle of Lochalsh, passing north up the Sound of Sleat, meeting more settled water but the persistent wind driven wet and cold of this final leg made the increasing shelter offered by the Kyle most welcoming, made all the more so by a burst of bright blue sky and sunshine which showed the contrasting textures and colours of the enclosing hills to great effect.  The tidal race near of the east ferry seemed somewhat unfriendly and angry but our attentions were soon focused on bringing the boat to the mooring buoy, the returning wind and rain giving us a last soaking before we scuttled into the relative warmth of the cabin. Here, Duncan again encouraged his motley crew by telling us, yet again, the Rick will be bringing the required spare ‘head’ for the heating system when we meet him at Thurso. That will be most welcome, I thought, but for the time being we can pretend to be real sailors and cope with whatever weather the RBE cares to throw at us – and, from what the weather forecast suggests, it is going to do so over the next few days.

21st May   Kyle of Lochalsh to Ullapool.

Today started well, Duncan produced a ‘full fried’ breakfast of impressive quality – he tends to do this before he tells us the weather forecast for the day. Todays forecast was ‘bloody miserable’ so we planned a ‘short hop’ of 35 miles to moor in the shelter of Loch Torridon by 1300. Once again we were faced with greying skies, increasingly heavy rain, and a stinging southerly wing, which dictated two people in the cockpit and two below to spreads the discomfort so to speak. On engine and much shortened foresail through heavy mist and rain; past islands with unpronounceable names but which seemed to be eyeing us as likely prey as we slowly progressed northwards. North of the little shelter offered by Skye the coastline straightens, stunningly bleak in the given conditions, with only very few lonely homesteads and houses and indistinct tracks suggesting a real ‘tyranny of distance’. The lower cliff line is broken by a succession of jagged rocks, small stony beaches and tumbling waterfalls cascading down steep gullies. The easterly opening of Loch Torridon only appeared as a mist filled gulf, with the mass of Liathack rising above a level of torn clouds, often disappearing in the rain squalls. So we moved to Plan B – keep bashing on north to the shelter of Ullapool. The wind really did start to howl north of Loch Torridon; Force 7 and 8 sending us north with a scrap of foresail and the encouraging throb of the Volvo Penta ( but at least it has a Perkins block). I was thinking about Perkins engines generally when the clouds cleared somewhat and the sun showed itself intermittently; long enough for us to enjoy the opening views of numerous slopes and horizons of the southern edge of the north west highlands with names that are increasingly reliably impossible to read, pronounce or remember – but one vividly recalls their beauty and massive presence, their shadowed slopes marshalling towards the eastern horizon as far as the weather allowed us to see it. We rather gratefully motored into Ullapool Bay to find shelter in the inner Harbour. Not another yacht seen all day – only the ferries and hardy sizable fishing boats which bear witness to the realities of these waters – and even they were running for cover. A serious days sailing and a genuine sense of a journey completed. Well done us.

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