In the barn and thanks

I've had some really nice notes of congratulations to our efforts, so some people are still reading this blog and I thankyou all for the compliments. I'm now feeling very embarrassed! 

I put it down to being a wimpish sailor, really. I had three rules (a) don't go to sea if there's a sniff of F6 in the forecast, (b) don't sail at night and (c) try to go round pointy bits at slack tide, preferably during neaps!

I think the tributes should really go to the design and build quality of the boat. Despite being in a few uncomfortable situations (mainly because I ignored rule (a)), I've had every confidence that the boat will "take it". OK, a few things didn't work as well as expected (roller reefing - now fixed) but nothing broke at a critical moment. My confidence in the boat has been increased by the adoption of the "spreader" mast configuration. It has stiffened the rig considerably and (I think) improves the upwind performance too.

I wouldn't want to do it in an open boat. The idea that I was carrying with me a snug cabin, that would be available to me once we had got somewhere quieter, buoyed me up a few times!

Vagabond is now in a barn in Buckinghamshire, beside a renovated Gypsy caravan and the body of an old Bentley that has seen better days.

Vagabond is looking a bit the worse for wear, too. Her rubbing strips have been rubbed several times and the gel coat has a few crazes and biffs. The sails probably need cleaning and several pieces of cordage need replacing. As for Freddie, he's covered in salt, needs a wash and another service. Doris is in her cover and probably growing some excellent strains of mould.

I'll have to pay them all some attention in the next few weeks.

Stop Press - full mileage now computed.

I take it all back - the GPS was not in a sulk, nor was it an example of built in obsolescence -  it was just missing a fully charged battery.
This means that I can now publish the full mileages for each year and the grand total - you can see these on the map but, to save you a click or two the full mileage (in nautical miles) was:

                                        2125

As it took  us  3 years, that's an average speed of about 2 miles a day!

GPS in a sulk

After our arrival at Balvicar on Saturday, I spent Sunday cleaning the cabin, repairing the brake cables on the trailer* and debating with myself as to whether I should replace the wheel bearings whilst I was at it. Sloth won out, so we are now jouneying south on the original bearings.**

 (I also did a bit of plumbing in the cottage - but that's another story).

On Monday, Mike and Graham, the helpful father and son who own and run the Balvicar boatyard, hauled her out of the water, postioning her with millimetric precision on the trailer; the water ballast drained away. The mast came down, Doris was deflated, halliards unreeved, various ropes and stays tied down and we were ready for the journey. 

Off on Tuesday morning.

Then the trailer light board fell off and dragged along the road. It took some time for this to be discovered......

Eventually to Pitlochry, for dinner with the Scottish herbalist, a discussion on the outcome of the forthcoming referendum and various other seemingly more important issues. Vagabond spent the night in the company of a number of spare caravans owned by the local caravan park.

Then, after a good nights sleep, home for me and to the barn in Buckinghamshire for Vagabond, in two  stages.

This evening, after dining in an hotel, I thought I'd turn on the Garmin GPS and down load the track of the voyage, so I can publish more intimate details of our progress in future editions of this blog.....

I discovered that the device has gone into  a sulk. It tells me it needs to have it's software reloaded, yet resoutely will not connect to a PC. It's now rated "unsupported" by it's manufacturer and I bought it just three years ago***.

Does it know it's work is done, or is this some terrible example of built in obsolescence by the manufacturer?

Footnotes 

* I think I had forgotten to mention on this blog that both cables had failed whilst the trailer was parked during the winter

** fingers crossed, wood touched and salt thrown over left shoulder etc

***well, it was a bargain at the time!

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!

The furthest West ever: 56 deg 43.397 min N, 6 deg 14.795 W

Yesterday (Thursday), we rounded Ardnamurchan point. It's the most westerly point on mainland Britain and reputed for turbulent seas and boisterous winds. 

We'd left Mallaig at about 11 am, to catch the tide south. The wind was a stiff breeze from the NW and the seas were slight. Vagabond romped along. There was some turbulence as a current from the West of Skye joined the one that we were in sliding down the Sound Of Sleat. That calmed down as we passed down tide of Eigg and then we had more turbulence as the passed Eigg and the tidal flow from the small isles joined us. It was here that I formed my M25 traffic flow / tidal stream analogy, thinking of how the M25 slows to a bumpy snails pace when other major roads join it (M40 / M25 junction is my speciality). Is this the stuff for a thesis - although I fear it has already been done.

We rounded Ardnamurchan point to find the wind exactly behind us and the sea ahead "smooth".

With the main boom out to port and the jib out to starboard, we goosewinged down to the entrance to Tobermoray, to find a new, bigger, pontoon and the Mishnish* (the yachties favourite pub) shut for renovation. So I had to watch the England - Uruguay match in a different pub.

Tobermory

* The grand reopening is Friday night - I was assured** it would be the lead article in next weeks "Oban Times"

** by the gentleman in the yacht parked alongside us (who, of course, had known the Viking!)

Through the fog to Mallaig

It's now Friday 20th June. Faithful readers of this blog will be wondering what's happened in the last couple of days - others, whoose memories are not enfeebled by their advancing years will be wondering why there has been no mention of the Owners Agent in recent posts. There's no really convincing reason - thanks to the wonders of modenr communications reaching the Highlands, we have been almost in daily contact as she has coaxed contractors to do their stuff. You may recall that, in the first year of this voyage, we "downsized" to a smaller and new (-er) house. I had forgotten how poorly built the houses were in the 1960's; it's taken us until now, using an apparent army of contractors to get it to a reasonable standard. The Owners Agent has been managing this lot whilst I'm away enjoying myself.

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.....

Still Motoring - but South this time

It's Tuesday, 17th June. Four days short of the longest daylight hours for the year. It seems as if haven't seen the sun since Sunday. 

Vagabond and I are now at Gairloch (not the one on the Clyde, but the one north of Kyle of Lochalsh), in a busy cafe (for a change) where yachtsmen consult Ipads for a weather forecast, climbers do the same and the coach parties carry on their converstions

I left my readership* on a buoy in Rispond Bay, wondering if the batteries would survive poor light and no shore power and still be able to charge the ipad, the number navigation system? 

When I woke the following morning, the ipad was fully charged and the main batteries still had volts. 

On buoy in Rispond Bay

We left Rispond Bay in damp fog, and cautiously felt our way out to sea, where the mist cleared and I could see Cape Wrath. 

The various books caution the navigator about approaching this cape. There is a small passage, between the Cape and an outlying rock that "should only be taken in calm conditions at slack water". Well, the conditions couldn't get much calmer. 4kn of wind (from the West) and no apparent swell. But it is the time of the spring tide, so the currents are very strong and the water is very disturbed. "Look out for white water in the passage, and if you see it, keep 3 miles off shore" We approached the Cape just as the tide was turning. "let's take the inshore passage", I thought. 

The sea was clearly confused and lolopped about. Waves 3 - 4 feet high coming from (it seemed) every direction at quite short intervals. Big holes would appear in the sea where opposing troughs coincided and the tiller worked hard to steer us between the worst.

Approaching Cape Wrath

All calm again

Vagabond staggered through it all for about 30 minutes and then we were round, into calmer seas. There was still no wind, so Freddy drone on to KinLochBervie, where we went alongisde a pontoon. The fishing harbour was quiet - it was the weekend. 

The following day (after filling up with petrol) we motored south the Loch Inver, and the day after we did the same to come to Gairloch. I've established (again) that Freddie burns a litre of petrol an hour......

At least on the trip from KLB to Loch Inver we could see the magnifcent mountain scenery, stretching away to the South.

The Old Man of Stour

Flat calm off Gairloch 

Nature notes

None of real interest.

Not a fin in sight for the whole three days. 

The odd Auk or two and a few puffin.

We motored past Handa Island - this used to be the home of a large Gannet colony. Two thirds of the ledges were empty and there were few birds to see.

There was a Skua that kept up with us, in the hope we'd throw out some discards. It would fly past us, low down, a few boat lengths away and land in the water ahead of us. 

As we approached, it would take off, and fly close alongside, almost at my eye leve, looking at me meaningfully. It would then wheel away and land astern of us and wait until almost out of site. Then the whole sequence would be repeated. This went on for a couple of hours!

As we motored into Gairloch, a white tailed eagle flapped overhead.

Kyle of Lochalsh tomorrow.

* I know I have a least two, now, as they have been leaving comments! All comments are welcome and will get a reply (depending on internet connectivity)!