Like moths to a candle

We’re very glad that we made the decision to move all of 4 miles to North Harbour on the little island of Scalpay, which is now connected to the main island of Harris by an impressive road bridge, before leaving the Outer Hebrides. The yacht pontoon is run by Fred, the same manager as the one in Tarbert, and he told us there’d be space in the lee of a large offshore support vessel. North Harbour is a wonderful, natural haven but is open to strong winds from the west; it’s mostly used by fishermen and fish farm vessels.

Once ashore, the place had a slightly run-down air to it. The village school had closed, as had the community shop but there were basic, clean loos and showers and there was the Bistro.. well, we’ll come back to the Bistro. The landscape is green but stony, with tough-looking houses nestled between rocky outcrops and their ‘gardens’ nibbled by roving sheep.

These allotments were known as 'lazybeds' to grow vegetables. Most have been abandoned but a few are still in use 

Thankfully we had dry weather, and even some sunshine (wow, we could use that right now; the weather is pretty awful up here at the moment) so a hike to the lighthouse at the eastern end of the island seemed like a good plan.

As sailors, we are always interested in lighthouses and have hiked out to many a remote spot around the world just to visit one. The architecture, and sheer bloody-mindedness of the people who designed the things, is also fascinating; they were determined to build something interesting and beautiful rather than simply functional. How happy were the labourers who actually constructed the things, as they carried materials out to remote and exposed locations and worked in all weathers, can only be imagined.

Impressive bit of dyke-building, straight into a loch

Eilean Glas lighthouse was one of the first built by the Northern Lighthouse Board and was completed in 1789. Its first keeper, a fisherman from Fraserburgh called Alex Reid, lived and worked out here for 37 years and by the end of his time he was reported to be ‘weatherbeaten and stiff by long exposure to the Point of Glas’ and was pensioned off with an annuity of forty guineas. The new tower was erected in 1824 when Robert Stephenson was the NLB’s chief engineer. A foghorn was added in 1907, which increased the number of lighthouse keepers to three, and the lighthouse was finally automated in 1978. Its rotating Fresnel lens system was dismantled and given to the Royal Scottish Museum and today the operation of the powerful LED light is monitored remotely from the NLB headquarters in Edinburgh.

The compressed air tanks for the foghorn. The original lighthouse tower can be seen behind them.

The Shiant Islands in the distance

Having got our lighthouse fix, we hiked back along the well-marked scenic route which crossed peaty moorland, springy underfoot. 

An excellent day was rounded off with an amazing meal at the North Harbour Bistro; happily we’d arrived on its first opening night of 2021 and the seafood was fantastic.

We’re now back on the mainland, after an excellent sail to Badachro in Loch Gairloch on Saturday and then a complete thrash, in wild wind and rain, yesterday to Plockton. By the look of the forecast, we’ll be here a couple of days and will hope to get some breaks in the rain and wind to explore ashore.

 

 

 

 

The word of the day is 'dreich'

We’ve had a couple of nights in the little marina of Tarbert, Harris. Yes, another Tarbert, there’s lots of them up here, as mentioned in a previous blog story. It’s a lovely little place, in some amazingly beautiful countryside, but unfortunately the weather has been ‘dreich’, as they say in Scotland. Wet and dull and quite windy too.

Still, the weather allowed us to do a few chores, so the washing is done and a few more boat jobs have been ticked off the list.

The marina – just a single pontoon, run with great enthusiasm by a chap called Fred – is just opposite the ferry terminal which is undergoing an £18M upgrade for a new ferry. However, the shipyard given the contract to build the ferry, Ferguson Marine in Glasgow, went bust and had to be rescued by the Scottish Government in 2019. The new ferry now won’t enter service until 2023 at the earliest and costs have spiralled.  

The arrival of the existing ferry is quite entertaining as it comes alarmingly close to our berth!

We did manage a brief, 20-minute, spell of clear weather yesterday afternoon before the rain moved in again so managed to get these photos.

Today promises to be brighter but still breezy, so we plan to move all of 5 miles to the little island harbour of Scalpay. There’s not much there as the community-run shop has closed and the famous Scalpay Bistro has yet to re-open (all the hospitality venues here are struggling to find staff); however, if the rain holds off there’s said to be some good hikes to be had on the island. After that, tomorrow looks promising for the crossing of the Little Minch, the stretch of water between here and Skye. With an eye on the calendar, we need to head back to the mainland and start heading south.

 

 

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. 

 

A new playground

The Outer Hebrides is a new cruising ground for us and it seems like a wild and beautiful area. We'll have a week or so (weather permitting) to head up the more sheltered eastern side of the island chain then do a clockwise circuit back to the mainland, down the narrow Kyles on the east side of Skye and then back southwards towards home.

Lochboisdale has an unlikely-looking, relatively new yacht marina (also home to some massive workboats for the salmon farms nearby) and is the ferry port for South Uist. There's a hotel, a gift shop and a cafe, and that's pretty much it! The marina is fairly industrial-looking but the hillside opposite is rugged and imposing.

The marina was created by building a new stone causeway and road

The ferry for Mallaig leaves at 06.40 every day and returns, to moor overnight, in the early evening.

The morning ferry departure. Maunie and Bravo are the boats on the nearest marina pontoons

We'll take the bus to the nearest Co-op (about 4 miles away) this morning as shopping opportunities, as we head north, might be few and far between. The long-term forecast suggests fairly settled southerly winds, with a bit of a wild and windy day on Thursday, so we'll find some remote anchorages. Likely to be no mobile phone signal, however, so we'll update the blog when we can, probably in a few days' time. 

Nuffin, then Puffins (lots of them)

The tiny island of Canna is one of the Small Isles (Muck, Eigg and Rum are the others) and its well-sheltered harbour makes a very useful stop-over for boats on passage from the mainland to the Outer Hebrides. Graham came here on a friend's boat about 35 years ago and remembers a sleepless night with the anchor dragging - the kelp on the seabed challenges even the most modern anchors and that boat had a distinctly old-school type. 

These days there are ten secure moorings in the bay, maintained by the community who ask for a £15 per night donation towards their upkeep - a small price to pay for a good night's sleep! The island was gifted to the National Trust in the 1980's and operates sheep and beef farming plus a few small tourist-related enterprises; the CalMac ferry visits twice a day in the summer to bring a few visitors in search of a get-away-from-it-all holiday destination. It's a beautiful, rugged place but probably a pretty tough environment in winter.

We arrived late afternoon after a good spinnaker sail up from Mull and we were pleased to pick up the last couple of vacant moorings. At the water's edge we could see the little Cafe Canna so we called on the radio to see if they could feed us. "We're fully booked, I'm afraid," came the reply, "but we could probably do something simple like a plate of Langoustines to share if that would be OK?" We said that would be very OK, thank-you, and dinghied ashore.

Cafe Canna, with the little honesty shop to its right

Wow, we were completely overwhelmed by what the lovely staff brought to our table:

These beasties were new to us - Squat Lobsters. Absolutely delicious. 

We had to go for a walk after that lot!

Our original plan was to spend just one night here, before heading west to South Uist, but a conversation with another diner in the cafe changed all that. Apparently there was a well-signed, 2-mile walk across to the south coast of Sanday island where, if we were lucky, Puffins might be seen. The next morning, in sunshine that was soon to give way to rain, we headed off in hope, rather than expectation, of seeing perhaps just one or two of these beautiful birds. The route took us past the unused but well-maintained St Edward's Church:

The meandering path eventually led us to a clifftop overlooking two dramatic sea-stacks. No Puffins, though.

We were just thinking of heading back when suddenly the sky was filled with birds. The Puffins were returning from their morning fishing expeditions!

It was truly a memorable show and we eventually walked back to the boats, as the rain started, absolutely delighted with the decision to stay the extra day.

We're now planning the next stage of our voyaging and unfortunately will have to part company with Adam & Cindi, at least for a while. Due to the imminent expiry of their UK visas, they will have to leave the boat in Ardfern Marina for a few weeks and fly out of the country. We really needed some internet in Canna to see a long-term weather forecast so were delighted that the wonderfully-stocked, open 24/7 honesty shop also had excellent wifi.

Di catching up on emails

Definitely a 'restores your faith in humanity' kind of place!

The forecast gave us the confidence for one last, really lovely sail in company out to Loch Boisdale in South Uist where we arrived this lunchtime. We'll enjoy another great supper aboard (thanks to us asking a local fisherman if we could buy some Langoustines from his boat), then tomorrow we'll head northwards up the eastern side of the Outer Hebrides island chain while Bravo will turn back towards the mainland. 

Tobermory, Isle of Mull

 We're delighted at how late in the evenings it stays light up here. We're in Tobermory, Mull, and heading out to the tiny island of Canna this morning, but last night we walked out to the lighthouse overlooking the Sound of Mull. This photo was taken at about 10.00pm:

Looking NE towards Ardnamurchan Point, the most westerly point on the mainland

Walking back into Tobermory at about 10.30pm

The famous Mishnish Hotel - a yachties' favourite

Sailing with Graham's dad about 30 years ago, we beached his Jaguar 21, Isis, on the little beach during a gale. We slept soundly whilst all the big boats bounced around in the anchorage. 

Proper cruising weather at last

 Summer has finally arrived and our location is just spectacular. We are now near Mull - heading into the picturesque port of Tobermory this morning for provisions - and have loved the tranquility of some wild anchorages for the past few nights. We've had some fun sailing, too.

The 'Irish Flag' flying as we approached Tarbert last week. Photo: Adam Kerner

The Parasailor in action as we approached the Sound of Mull

For the past two nights we've been in Loch Na Droma Buidhe (popularly known as Loch Drambuie) which is a famous spot only a few miles from Tobermory. With a narrow entrance at its west side, it offers excellent shelter from all wind directions but is pretty deep so you have to find an anchorage spot fairly close to shore. Last night we had one of those perfect calms, with a beautiful sunset:

The narrow entrance, looking west

Bravo airing her spinnaker

This morning we'll head across to Tobermory on Mull for a much-needed re-stock of provisions and to refill the water tank before heading west out to the Outer Hebrides.