In which Sid and Doris go round Ardnamurchan Point to Mallaig.
We were up bright and early, or anyway we were up early because the light was bright, after an uneasy night during which Sid was prised out of bed at unearthly o’clock to go and adjust some persistently creaking ropes.
Our neighbours on Seahorse 184 decided to leave a couple of hours after us for the run up to Ardnamurchan believing it would give better tidal whoosh. We wonder if they have the faulty Reeds Almanac with the errors in High Water Dover, as we had plenty of tidal lift all the way round. We also used a conservative sail plan – 2 reefs in the main and variable amounts of headsail – and were relieved when our pontoon neighbours tonight said “yes, that’s what everyone does in Scotland”. The weather forecast is taken as as a helpful average, and today was typical with winds of various forces and rain of different intensities.
Pausing only to take The Picture of Tobermory harbour (also called “the selling power of a good pot of paint”, our friend Bothy McWeevil is very impressed), we set off for the last bit of the Sound Of Mull and into the Hebridean Sea.
We thrilled to see the lighthouse at Ardnamurchan Point, famous to insomniacs across the world,
and then turned north with Rhum, Eigg and Muck on our left (“The Small Isles”) and Skye in our sights. And to continue the weather theme we finished the day with the Sound of Sleat.
The charted magnetic anomaly did show up though disappointingly we saw no submarine exercises, but maybe that is rather the point.
We are now in the territory of black and white birds, not including penguins or magpies. The gannets are fun to watch as they dive bomb head first into the water. Evolution has sorted out a hard skull otherwise they would all be like retired boxers.
Weather comes, and goes.
Mallaig is tucked in behind a hillock, well sheltered and mainly a fishing harbour.
The boats are very deeply keeled, as we can see in the boatyards. The harbour has benefited from an EU/Lottery/everything else grant and has constructed a very pretty Harbour Facility (the round and the triangular buildings in the picture).
A walk around town finds that we are pre-season with many empty cafes. Tomorrow we will enjoy the Heritage Centre with its displays of seasonal herring and the tale of the coming of the railway. Once they had the trains they could get fish to market without salting them. If fortunes were made it doesn’t look as if the money was spent around here.
