Balvicar Island of Seil. Pause button pressed.

Monday morning showed a clear sky. The coastguard weather report promised S / SE winds at force 3 -4 and smooth seas in sheltered waters with possible thrunderstorms later. We were headed further north east, up the Sound of Jura and then branching off to starboard. If you go and look at a map of this bit of Scotland, you will see that the Sound of Jura runs roughly NNE and is bounded by Jura on the west and the mainland on the east. The mainland is broken into a number of finger like peninsulas, each with a string of small islands at its southern tip and  with sea lochs in between them. At the head of the sound a number of islands block the way into the Firth of Lorne. As the tide rushes up the sound, the water is forced between these islands giving rise to tidal races between them.



The Corryvrekan  runs through this gap

One of these is the legendary Corryvreckan and another is known as Dorus Mor.

Our destination for today is Balvicar at the head of the Seil Sound, itself at the head of Loch Shuna, a sea loch between two of the Peninsulas*. The Vikings' daughter has a cottage nearby and is on good terms with the owner of the boatyard there. It will be a good place to leave Vagabond whilst I go home and cut the grass (etc).

I climbed onto the boom again to make a few phone calls. Yes the boatyard can let me have a mooring for a couple of weeks. Yes the cottage is available, the neighbour will let me in.

We have to negotiate the Dorus Mor to get there so all I have to do now is work out the tide times...

I find conflicting advice.
One book recommends passage times that change depending on whether it's neaps or springs. Others make reference to High Water at Dover. All say the best time to go through is at slack water and the speed of the current suddenly increases an hour after it. I plump for the HW Dover option and realise we have to leave now  to be there in time.

I had planned to creep out of the north exit of my lair - the chart plotter seemed to think there was a way through, as did the Clyde Cruising club but when I let go of the buoy, Vagabond had other ideas and only wanted to go out the way we had come in. So we did.

Disturbed water through the Dorus Mor

Out into the Sound and up with the sails. We turn north and waft up towards the Dorus Mor. The wind is light and dead astern; I try to set the jib in a Goose wing. It just flaps from side to side as we drift along. There's plenty of time, isn't there. A yacht appears ahead and seems to be going the same way.

Another yacht motors down a loch to the right and swings round into the Dorus Mor. It seems to get through easily enough, so it must be slack water there. At this rate we're still an hour away - so we'd better get a move on. Freddie gives us a helping push and we arrive at the entrance to the Dorus Mor in the company of two other yachts, all motor sailing like us.

The yacht behind was a 45 ft Halberg Rassy and the helmsman was itching to overtake Vagabond as we went through the Dorus Mor passage. He was edging to pass us on our starboard side- the snag was that I wanted to turn that way as soon as we got through the passage, to run up Loch Shuna. I could have found the fog horn and blown one blast.  ('I am turning to starboard') but he wouldn't have heard it (and if he did, he would have had to go and look up what it meant), so I put my hand out like a cyclist! He understood, waved and crossed our stern to pass on the other side.


The water in Loch Shuna was flat calm. The sun shone. The wind was still behind us and we now  had plenty of time and a long run ahead of us. I pumped out the water ballast and set the jib into a stable goosewing. Vagabond accelerated to just over 6.5 knots.
After we had passed Shuna Island, we needed to veer a bit to port to cross a bit of open water and then head up Seil Sound to find the anchorage at Balvicar. The wind veered with us and we stayed goosewinged all the way until just before the anchorage when we came into the wind to drop the sails. Now I remember what is is I like about sailing in this part of the world.

Clouds gathered around us as we came into the anchorage. We found a mooring buoy and had just made fast to it when the rain started. It threw it down. This was one of the thundery showers that the met had forecast. I hastily put up the spray hood and huddled under it for about 20 minutes. This reminded me of the downside of sailing in this part of the world.

I took the opportunity to read the log.

17.7 miles in the day, at an average speed of just over 4 knots. 

The rain eased off enough for me to inflate the dinghy and go ashore to report to the boatyard. Over a cup of tea I outlined my plans and I returned to Vagabond to properly put her to bed for a couple of weeks and to take off her the stuff I needed to take home.

It was then off to the cottage, a hot shower and a real bed. Next morning I was on the way home, by bus on the Bridge over the Atlantic and train from Oban to the south. It took 13 hours, door to door!

Our total mileage so far is just over 1000.
I had reached my (revised) goal for the year (Oban by September).
Activity at home on the house move front looks like it's hotting up.

Vagabond on the buoy in Balvicar bay

It may be time to press the Pause button for longer than a fortnight......

*Peninsulae for the Latin scholars amongst my readership