Things I have done this year and failed to blog: Part 1

May: Sailing
We chartered a boat from Isle of Skye Yachts with his sister and a friend from his Day Skipper course.

We had several plans in mind, but being wind dependant ended up choosing a circumnavigation of Mull. Our route was as follows:

Ardvasar (Skye) - Rhum - Tobermory - Loch Spelve (Mull) - Iona - Bunessan (Mull) - Staffa - Treshnish - Coll - Eigg - Doune (Knoydart) - Ardvasar
(Overnight stops in bold)

The first day we were quite ill - I was very envious of my sister-in-law's constant vomiting as I felt like death on a stick but wasn't actually able to throw up at all. In the end I wedged myself into the 'Gin Seat' at the back corner of the cockpit and went to sleep. Hence we went into Tobermory marina. We used moorings at Coll and Doune, but anchored everywhere else.

Drama of the week was snagging the anchor in the Treshnish Isles. We stopped for lunch and thought we were far enough away from the tripper boat pontoon, but clearly not as we caught on one of their seabed chains. Luckily, it wasn't too deep and it was sunny - so in he went and freed the anchor manually.

Anchoring at Eigg was a bit interesting. When we stopped we had 0.0m reading beneath the keel and we were rather close to the ferry slip. However, it was low water and the ferry doesn't run every day. Eigg is quite interesting for being one the first community buy outs and for having its own power generation scheme.

I'd recommend Doune. There's a restaurant there, but no road. If you don't fancy walking a mile(ish) from the nearest one, it's best to sail. The food was plentiful and delicious.

Loch Spelve

Our boat, Iona

Staffa