Day 77 Tue 31 July Plockton to Portree, Skye

Vega
Irving & Cate Benjamin
Tue 31 Jul 2012 21:40

For once we awoke to blue skies and real warm sunshine, as if it was summer or something, so we cast off and headed (motoring, not a breath of wind) for the Raasay Narrows and the route north to Portree on Skye's east coast.  This was a short hop really, and we ate our rolls and growlers (pork pies for the uninitiated) en route, and picked up our mooring in the Bay at 1330. We had planned to land first on the pontoon to fill our water tank, but were waved off by the harbourmaster as there is a 600 berth cruise liner anchored here, and they have a constant shuttle of launches taking the passengers to and fro.  When we rowed (see that? ROWED!) the dinghy ashore we found the small town was very busy with tourists of all nations, predominantly German.  We had a coffee and while Cate had some pharmacy business to deal with I had a beer sitting by the harbour, making sure our little rubber ducky did not disappear with the rising tide.  As time is running short for us now, we have to make some serious progress northwards to have some time on Orkney, so we will need  a few longer hops.  One option for the next day was Stornoway, Isle of Harris, so I took some advice from the harbourmaster, and we looked at the weather together on his PC.  Although we are due some nice steady light winds later this week, tomorrow will see ESE, with up to 25k, but some gusts of 36, and he advised against The Minch in those conditions.  So we will revert to Plan A, and aim for Ullapool tomorrow, leaving before 0600 to catch a nice few hours of northerly tides.  Rowed home, cooked pasta for supper, and an early night for the early start.

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