We haulled up the anchor. I say we, what I actually mean is that our windlass pulled up the anchor for us. When I laid the anchor I was trying to get into the habit of using a tripping line. Not because there was a danger of catching an underwater obstacle, but because I thought it was good practice. As the anchor chain came in I grabbed the buoy with the boat hook, but it had a bit of weight to it, thinking it had caught around weed on the bottom, I left it in the water. I took in the rest of the anchor and pulled in the tripping line from the anchor. It started to come on board then stopped. I tried to pull it in from the other side of the bow, and still it was jammed. This left us in a bit of a predicament as we couldn't be sure the buoy and rope hadn't got caught around the prop, and the light breeze and tide were taking us towards the rocks. We unfurled a bit of the genoa to get us clear of the anchorage. I took the line around to the starboard side again, and gave the lie a tug. Nothing. I took the line back to the port side and pulled the line as far aft as I could, and with great relief the orange buoy popped to the surface.
We motored to Oban Marina and berthed for the day. The marina has free WiFi and a free boat to take you from Kerrera Island into Oban. The marina also has showers, described as a luxury facilities block. But they wouldn't be what I would call "luxury", OK if you'd just spend 6 months sailing around north west Scotland and these were the first showers you found, then agreed they could be termed a "luxury" but we had a shower two days earlier, and they weren't "luxury". The Duisdale Hotel, with toiletries and clean white towels provided. That was a luxury shower facility. Having to leave a hot sweaty little room with a toilet, toenail clippings, shower and random pole, wearing a towel to put your pound coin into the box ain't "luxury"! But enough ranting about the showers, the marina itself was good, although some dog owner could have done the marina a favour by cleaning the turd their dog left at the base of the shore power bollard. Ok that really is the ranting over with for now...
We had showers and took the free ferry service over to Oban where we had booked in to do the Distillery Tour. The good thing we've found about the Diageo distilleries is that all of their tours are different. The small but perfectly formed Oban distillery had a good surprise up its sleave in the form of a taste of a single cask 10 year old. Not blended, married or watered down it was a good whisky, and one I'd happily buy a bottle of if I could, alas it's not possible, it was a fine whisky though.
After the tour we bought a couple of bottles and headed off to do a bit of shopping. Kirsty managed to find a butcher (wearing a tie, which is a good sign apparently) and we stocked up on vac packed meat for the next few days before heading to Tescos to buy the food we couldn't source locally. By now it was really raining so we caught the ferry back to the marina.
The afternoon was (as sad as it sounds) spent on the Internet. I was uploading our routes on the Team Surv website http://www.teamsurv.eu while Kirsty was looking up wedding dresses. It was the first time we'd really be able to use the Internet on a fast connection for almost two months. I think we got our mooring fees worth of Internet use between us over what was left of the afternoon.
We ate ashore in the bar and restaurant, which are two separate companies, the bar is a shed at one side of the undercover area. The restaurant was a kitchen and food was brought from the kitchen, into the rain and then to us in the undercover seating. If you're a fan of seafood, I'm sure you'll love the food, but for a meat eater like me, the choice was limited, especially when their fryer was on the blink. Burger with potato salad anyone? No, me neither. Kirsty and I both had tasty stew, but at £9 it was a bit overpriced, even considering it's island location with great view over the harbour. We returned to Pixie and had a whisky.
It was a leisurely start to the mooring, we topped up the water and diesel (from our jerry can) and spent the morning on the Internet again. We didn't have enough time to make it to Oban and back again before it was time to leave.
The wind had been gusting in the harbour up to 20 knots and then nothing. As we came to leave the berth Kirsty slipped the bow, I put Pixie astern and cast off the stern. Before we could go astern the wind caught the bow, blowing it down towards our neighbour. I increased the revs, but this had the unwanted effect of throwing Pixie's stern into the wind, and swinging her bow further down wind. Eventually the prop started to pull her stern out of the berth, just as the bow swung past the boat next door. We clipped her dan buoy, but luckily nothing else. We both breathed a sigh of relief, it was close, but we didn't do any damage, which was the main thing.
We hoisted our main and set off down Kerrera Sound. It was sunny, but the breeze kept coming and going, but once clear of the lee of Kerrera Island we had an enjoyable sail south. We crossed our path on the way up, so we have kind of circumnavigated the highlands of Scotland, well some of the highlands. The wind eventually died, then came back at 18 knots on the nose. Into a bit of a swell and chop. After motoring into it for about 10 mins we were able to ease sheets and head for Cuan Sound. Only a few hundred metres wide, the tide rushes through like a river, the water doesn't know where to go, and navigating at speed is fun, if slightly nerve-wracking at the time.
Once through the water flattened out, and we were left with 16 knots on the beam for our sail to the north of Shuna Island. Where we are now...With a whisky
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