Meeting the wildlife

Canna harbour to the left, Skye in the distance

We’re now in Canna, one of the Small Isles (Rhum, Eigg and Muck are the others) and a place that’s one of our favourite destinations in this part of the world. It has a permanent population of just 17 but that’s soon to become 18, we have just learned. It’s absolutely beautiful but, when we arrived yesterday afternoon, it was very, very wet.

We’re certainly into an area of great wildlife now – we’ve seen lots of seabirds, including puffins, and enjoyed two magical interactions with pods of dolphins – so, with slightly better weather today, we retraced our steps of last year to see if the puffin colony on Sanday Island is still thriving.

Our latest cruising grounds

A quick recap of the past few days: On Friday we waited patiently for heavy, driving rain to clear and left Port Ellen just before 4.00pm for a truly memorable sail north to Colonsay. Almost as soon as we had the sails set, we found ourselves surrounded by a pod of about ten Bottlenose Dolphins who entertained us by playing in Maunie’s bow wave for about 45 minutes.

There’s a short video of them having fun here: https://youtu.be/0v9S6r7mpGg

We then threaded ourselves up the Sound of Islay, between Islay and Jura, and survived some entertainingly fierce catabatic squalls (sudden wind gusts rolling off the steep hills to drop on us) that had Maunie heeling hard over. The tide runs at up to 5 knots in the narrow sound and we saw 11.5 knots SOG (speed over ground) while sailing at about 7 knots through the water.

Sailing into the sunset, toward the north end of Islay

Looking back down the Sound of Islay

Leaving the shelter of the sound we were suddenly into slightly rolling swells but soon found further shelter on the east side of Colonsay for an anchorage in a deserted bay, a mile south of the main settlement of Scarasaig. Unfortunately, this is where the fun ended as we discovered our normally reliable anchor windlass refused to work. Thankfully, Dianne had remembered to check the windlass before entering the anchorage so at least we had some warning of the fault. But, in trying to lower the heavy anchor and chain by hand, Graham trapped a finger in between chain and windlass. Some blood and swearing followed but Di did a masterful first aid job and we then lowered the spare anchor on a rope, leaving the mystery of the recalcitrant windlass for future investigation.

The following morning, initial checking of power circuits yielding no answers, we hauled the anchor by hand and had a rolling and very rainy sail up to the SW tip of Mull and a magical anchorage called Tinker’s Hole. It’s a very narrow cleft in some pink granite rocks that takes some nerve to enter but the contrast between the confused, lumpy swell at the entrance and the smooth water inside was very welcome. The anchorage is a narrow SW to NE channel in the rocks so the current runs through it quite strongly, so we took advice from others who have written about the anchorage (it’s a famous one on Mull) and lowered a stern anchor to keep us out of the current. With the windlass still dead, this involved shackling the main anchor to a reel of chain and hefty octaplait anchor warp that came (unused) with Maunie when we bought her in 2009 and has been buried in a deep locker ever since.

Surrounded by rocks but in perfect shelter

The giant cotton reel finally gets used!

Happily, the calm waters allowed Graham to wriggle his head and shoulders into the anchor locker and he eventually found a corroded fuse connector in the windlass electrics. A new fuse and a liberal squirt of WD40 and we have our windlass back! Just as well, as we expect to be doing a lot of anchoring in wild locations over the coming weeks.

Yesterday was even wetter than the day before and the southerly wind was still pretty fresh so we opted for a 50nm sail up the west coast of Mull, past Staffa and the Treshnish Isles and up to Canna. It’s a stunningly beautiful area but we saw almost nothing of it – visibility was less than a mile the whole way.

As we left the Sound of Iona, we saw a 450ft cruise ship called Maud on the AIS so Graham called her on the VHF to check that we showed up on their radar. We have a piece of kit called an Echomax Active Radar Reflector which receives incoming radar pulses from ships and electronically amplifies them to make us look like a much bigger vessel. The watch-keeper confirmed that he had a clear radar signal from us; comforting to know that the technology works! Maud passed close to us and did a slow pass of Fingal’s Cave on Staffa but her passengers wouldn’t have enjoyed a very clear view in the murky conditions.

With another pod of dolphins coming to play with Maunie, the remaining passage up to Canna was fast and rolly so we were glad to find flat water and several free moorings in the natural harbour. A trip ashore to the famous Café Canna was a welcome round-off to a day that wasn’t ruined by the horrible weather conditions, but we didn’t get quite the seafood feast that we enjoyed here last year. It transpired that the owners have had to go to Inverness for the imminent birth of their baby (who will become the 18^th resident of the island) so a limited menu was on offer. Still, we had the best fish and chips that we’ve eaten for a long time.

Today’s hike to see the Puffins was a bonus – blue sky and relative warmth for the moment. We had quite an impressive show from the birds but they quickly disappeared for a fishing expedition. The coastline views across to Rhum are as impressive as ever. 

As we walked the rather soggy-underfoot route we gained the attention of a couple of rather larger birds- Skuas – which obviously resented our presence and did a very impressive series of low-level bombing runs, swooping only 3 or 4 feet above our heads at great speed! They are big birds so a direct hit wouldn't be a good experience.

Incoming!

The Belted Galloway cattle watched our antics with the Skuas with interest

As we returned to the dinghy we watched the CalMac ferry do a very neat handbrake turn and reverse into the loading berth. It looks really quite dramatic when filmed as a time-lapse! (You can click on this image to make it bigger)

 So, what’s next? More wind, that’s what!    

Tomorrow's forecast - time to find some shelter

                                             

We’ll stay here tonight then head to the Outer Hebrides early tomorrow to find a sheltered spot to ride out a couple of days of gales – we’re aiming for Castle Bay on Barra. We then hope that sustained summer weather will arrive up here sometime soon!