057:23.354 N
005:49.391 W

Poll Domhain anchorage

We left our very peaceful anchorage after having breakfast in the cockpit still agog at the spectacular scenery in all directions.

Big day today; for months we have been aware that Kyle Rhea was another tidal gate where our maths had to be spot on or face 8 knot tides. Needing to arrive 1hr 40 after HW Dover, we anchored 6 miles away to make this easy to achieve. We were spot on with timing and so this 3 mile stretch of water with notorious tides and plenty of exciting stories shared recently, was uneventful with 1 knot of tide under us. In times like this, we are happy with uneventful!

Great to see the famous Glenelg-Skye ferry that shuttles a handful of cars across this stretch of water, it’s the last manual ‘turntable’ ferry in the world and had to be seen to fully understand the concept. Couple of photos below, one we took from TC and another taken from Google. We could see the two chaps manually operating the turntable, one standing on the boat and the other on the slipway, such an ingenious design to cope with these brutal tidal streams.

At the end of the Kyle, we spotted Eilean Donan Castle through binos, sadly not visiting on this occasion as the seriously deep anchorages didn’t sound too inviting.

Our next big milestone was going under the Skye Bridge, a big moment for both of us, TC and our trip. Despite it having a 29m clearance, our 15m mast still looked horribly close, but we flew under it and headed to this empty anchorage where the only occupants were a load of grey seals lying over the entrance rocks.

Our new excitement is that Harry is joining us this Friday, slightly earlier than expected, and can stay 2 not 3 weeks. This wonderful news means we are now on a mission to get to Ullapool but as it is close enough, we’ll visit a few anchorages en route and enjoy this settled weather.

There is now a beautiful sunset setting this stunning anchorage alight.