Damp and drizzly morning with odd bits of gusty wind – not enough to really stop us going anywhere but enough to provoke a postponement. So we chatted to the people on the other boat and then had a cup of coffee and made sandwiches. We put in a single reef and departed. It soon became apparent that the bay at Salen was quite sheltered! We found strong gusty wind, black clouds and white horses, and it felt as if something would break, so put in a second reef. After the job was done and the massive flapping of sails had finished the boat seemed to go along quite happily under main only at 4 – 5 knots thanks to the lack of waves. We could see the far end of the black cloud so carried on hoping for improvement. It did not seem to be sensible to fiddle with the genoa with no proper tack fixing in the wind, so rigged the storm jib which worked well. Of course the wind died back somewhat but we made good progress and moored at the pontoons at Tobermory – 2 pontoons in 2 days! what luxury!
Tomorrow we will buy shortbread and other tasty stuff from the bread shop and head to Oban or Puilladobhrain. The general trend of the weather is very unsettled with depressions queued up across the Atlantic. We were expecting a lot of wind on Wednesday, but this now seems to have been delayed until Thursday. Hopefully we can be in the Crinan Canal by then where we can get wet but not blown about. The change of weather is giving the place a very end-of-season feeling – we are taking the hint and heading south.
I forgot to mention it yesterday but the deepest parts of Loch Sunart are more than 400m deep. That's according to the chart - the echo sounder can never see more than 20-30m. So it is the deepest water we have ever sailed on.
Follow the
track on Google Maps.
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| New pontoons at Salen |
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| Salen bay from the head of the bay |
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Looking back at Salen.
We did not get round to photos in the windy bit! |
