And back to Balvicar

Friday dawned bright and fair (to be really fair, it hardly became dark overnight*) with the promise of the continued north westerly breeze. Just right for going down the Sound of Mull. The tide would be fair, too, from about 11:00 onwards. So, rather than wait a day (even with the prospect of participating in the reopening of the pub), we set off at  about half past ten. The sail were hoisted in the harbour and we turned down the sound. The tide was racing us along but the surface was reasonably settled. So the sails were set in a goosewing, we sailed slightly by the lee and romped down the channel. Despite the twists and turns of the sound, the wind stayed just behind my left ear and we were down the sound in no time at all. We passed through some turbulent water as we joined the Firth of Lorn(my 25 theory again) and crossed the firth and into Oban Bay and Kerrera marina for a quick overnight stop. Then south down the Sound of Kerrera, dodging past the MV Polaris, laying a buoy or two and back into the Firth. The two yachtrs in front of me headed straight for the favourite anchorage** to the north of the "Bridge over the Atlantic".

We headed past the north side of the Island of Seil and came upon the entrance to Easedale.
The yellow arrow at the top left of this chartlet shows the entrance

 

This offered a short cut through to the Cuan Sound. As you can see it was narrow and quite shallow - but it was high tide, the wind was kind - let's go for it. We crept through, with my eye on the leading lines (none) the chart plotter and the depth sounder. Oops, it's getting a bit shallow - turn to port, ok, it's getting deeper again, or was it? Turn to starboard, phew. We were through. We sailed across the entrance to Cuan Sound. I encourage Freddie to life as we might need him here. The current got hold of us and at 6.5 knots we headed down the first part. I'd never been through it this way - where was the perch on the island where we needed to turn left. Got it. Rudder over, quick. Just in time we turned up the NE arm of the channel. Now it was drifting /sailing up to Balvicar and the end of the voyage.

I've posted an updated map of our wanderings on another page to this blog..

Now what do we do?


* I must remember to fit some curtains!

** people familiar with the area will know where I mean. I'm not even going to attempt to spell out the name!