But I digress (again).
I had a day of leisure at Gailoch, walking miles to the local garage to fill up on petrol. I was given a lift back by a member of the local sailing club. He was rushing to the harbour to meet two guys who were sailing round Britain in a Wayfarer - they'd got to Gairloch in 11 days from Weymouth or somehwere similar on the South Coast......Makes us look positively snail like.
Vagabond alongside the pontoon in Gairloch
We had a lovely sunny day, without much wind, so it was a bit of a shock to wake next morning to a "Scotch Mist"; eg visibility was a couple of hundred yards * and everything was dripping wet. Nonetheless, we had a south going tide to catch and we left at 07:00. Feddie was pulled into life and we were off.
My glasses were covered in mist before we had rounded the end of the pier.
We felt our way out to the Little Minch, where the total fog eased to fog patches. As we approached the Nato torpedo range, a gray shape could be discerned in the gloom. ' Crickey', I thought **, 'it's about to fire something nasty down the range, just as we enter it; I'll call them up on ch 16****
Me "Warship in the Little Minch, Warship in the Minch, this is yacht Vagabond, over"
Them "Vagabond,Vagabond this warship <name> *****, how can we help? Over " The voice was pure (female) Dartmouth.
I thought I'd better tell them where I was, as I know from bitter experience that RN radar doesn't seem very good at seeing yachts.
Me: Warship , warship, this Vagabond, I am two cables off your starboard quarter, about to cross astern of you. Am I standing into danger? Over"
Them (after all the call sign staff "Negative, we're on listening watch. Warship out"
Well, I thought - Freddie will mess up their listening for a bit.....
I passed them. The sun came out.
The Skye bridge came into sight
and we were on the rather exposed pontoon in Kyle of Lochalsh by lunch time.
I had intended to stay here for the night. But the weather had now cheered up. There was a god breeze blowing south - why not go on and through the narrows between Skye and the mainland at Kylereah. We could anchor at Isle Ornsay. A quick check on the current atlas showed that I had about 3 hours of tide in our favour.
We were off. I started Freddie before we entered the narrows, just in case we needed extra push in the cross currents that I knew were there. Almost immediately he faltered.....but struggled on at reduced power. By now we were in the grip of the current and I couldn't afford to investigate - we'd just have to struggle on.
Ten minutes or so later we were in the midst of the narrows, passing the car ferry.
This seemed unchanged since the 1960's!
We were through. Isle Ornsay, my destintion hove into view - but we still had tide and wind in our favour - why stop. Mallaig beckoned.
"A busy industrial port' said the amanack, 'with few facilities for yachtsman". But this was written at least ten years ago. Phone them up. "Ach yes sir" said the harbour master,'we have pontoons now, I'll put you through to the manager."
We was allocated a berth and given the magic code for admissions and we sailed on.
As we approached, we were greeted by three red lights. "Do not enter the port when three red lights show". So we stooged about until a ferrry left and the lights went out. I'd noticed that there were two large (to us) ships stooging about too, so decided to let them get in before me. If I hadn't, I think we'd have been barged out fo the way by ships full of farmed salmon....
Soon we were alongside, twelve hours had elapsed since we left Gariloch. Tomorrow, Tobermory, then Oban, then Balvicar......
* less than 200 metres
** Scoolboy term shwoing that your writer is lapsing into his second childhood ***
*** the Owners Agent would say he's never got out of his first one
**** the emergency channel on the vhf radio
***** the names is not witheld for security reasons, it's just that I can't remember it.....
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