The first day of the actual Malts Rally began at 1045 with the Parade of Sail round Oban Bay, all boats dressed overall, led by Spray of Wight, a lovely replica ketch of the original Spray in which Joshua Slocum made the first solo cicumnavigation of the world. On our previous Malts, Spray had a piper on her foredeck, but there was none this time.  David Noble made up for this serious omission by standing on the foredeck of Vega playing an improvised  Scots lament on the descant recorder! The destination for the day was Tobermory, likely to be a hard 25 nM slog with both wind and tide against us from the north,  but we duly hoisted the sails and did the best we could for a couple of hours, watching most of the rest of the boats disappearing into the distance (we are the smallest boat in the fleet), until we finally succumbed and motored in order to secure a berth.  The harbour was already crowded as we arrived, and we felt sure we would spend the night afloat on a mooring, but we motored close in and David's eagle eye spotted the last pontoon berth, on which we gratefully tied up at 1700.  We posed on the bow for the mandatory team photograph, and checked out the facilities.  These are very new and pretty good, though the showers cost £2 rather than the usual £1, which caught a few people out who always carry their 'poon' in their pocket or washkit!  The provided meal for the evening was fish and chips and a drink of your choice at Monaghan's pub, but some initial false navigation led Benj and Ian well past the venue and right to the end of the town.  We made up for the error with a couple of beers on the way back at the famous Mishnish Hotel, and then returned for our fish suppers outside the pub.  Back aboard another music session started, a bit louder and more confident than before, so Ian went to bed and left David and Benj to their 'art'. An early start was planned for the next day, to catch the north-going tide around Ardnamurchan Point. A good end to a good start of our cruise.