All by ourselves

 It was a sad moment to wave goodbye to Bravo as she sailed out of Loch Boisdale yesterday - it's been such great fun sailing in company with Adam & Cindi. We had a cracking farewell meal aboard Bravo the night before and the fine bottle of Bunnahabhain malt, kindly donated by Colin back in Troon, was ceremoniously dispatched.

Wringing the final drips

Farewell to Bravo

While Adam and Cindi sailed back to Canna, we caught the local bus (capacity, with social-distancing rules, of just seven passengers) to take us to the village of Dalburgh and the Co-op store. The village was really more like a ribbon of a few houses along the road but the 4-mile trip gave us a glimpse of the South Uist countryside: flat, windy and with a scattering of bungalows.

The walk to the bus stop

Downtown Dalburg, rush hour

The short video clip, shot through the bus window, gives you an idea of the landscape. All the trees are in Norway.

Restocked with essentials, we left the marina early afternoon and sailed northwards with a cracking following wind, heading for the wonderful-sounding Wizard Pool in Loch Skipport.

Di enjoying the sailing. the new ScanStrut mount allows us to clip the iPad in its waterproof case onto the binnacle. Using an app called Memory Map, we have downloaded every Admiralty chart of the UK for just £25, so it's a great back-up for our main chart plotter in the pilothouse.

After an easy 15nm sail, the Wizard Pool anchorage definitely lived up to its billing:

Anchored in 9m next to Wizard Island. The salmon farm near the northern entrance to the pool is one of many on this coast

Looking south east. If the rain hadn't closed in on us, we'd have loved to dinghy ashore and explore up the the little loch on the left.

Looking west. It's possible to navigate through the narrow gap into Caolas Mor, another superbly-sheltered anchorage.

After a fairly fast downwind sail this morning we are now anchored near the ferry port of Lochmaddy in North Uist and tomorrow will head on to Scalpay on South Harris. It looks as though we'll have a couple of days of windy weather so will hunker down there until things ease.