The next morning the fishing boat had gone and the wind was buzzing Wendy (the wind charger) and we were getting gusts of over 20 knots in the harbour. The plan was to leave at 8 ish, but we thought we'd give the wind a bit of time to settle, so by around 9 we were ready to go. I tucked in one reef, in anticipation for the wind to increase. Like most days the sail started off well, a nice breeze on the beam, with the reef we were slighly underpowered, but going nicely. Over the next few hours the wind increased and decreased so we reduced or increased the headsail accordingly. It was overcast and a bit chilly, hard to believe I'd been sailing in shorts and T-shirt the day before. Pixie was making light work, happily sailing along at around 6 knots. I left Kirsty on the helm to get a bit of rest. When I came back on deck things were more or less as I left them. Kirsty and Pixie sailing along nicely together, 18 knots on the beam, the sea had built up a bit, and we'd made good progress. Two minutes later, the wind started to increase, we put a couple of roll in the genoa as Pixie galloped on. Then it started to rain and the wind kept increasing up to 27 knots. We rolled away more sail as Pixie surfed down the front of the waves, her speed was 7-8 knots most of the time. Approaching the entrance to Loch Harport we got rid of the genoa altogether. Luckily we did as we got hit by a 33 knot gust which took Pixie to almost 9 knots. Visibility was reduced to around 500 metres, just the shadows of the cliffs were black beneath the mist and rain.
We entered Loch Harport with the wind on the nose and heavy rain. But we got to a buoy off the Talisker Distillery at Carbost in one piece, so things weren't too bad. Although after we'd dried off we realise that after a week without shore power our battery levels were down to 61%. it might not sound too bad, but it meant that although we'd been living on bread and water in terms of electricity we were still using more than we were generating. Which was strange because we had been running the engine, but it hadn't been charging the batteries as it should. At first I suspected that I had wired up the VSR wrongly. It's instructions weren't very good or clear and some parts were open to interpretation. I phoned Merlin, and they confirmed I'd wired things correctly. The batteries were replaced in Falmouth, so prime suspect number one became the alternator. We went ashore to get some diesel. In spite of the opening times being 9-5:45, we got there at 5 and they were closed, we'd get some in the morning.
While we were ashore Kirsty picked up an answerphone message from my parents, they were due to be in Skye on Wednesday, where would we be? On the way back to the boat I met a bearded gentleman who asked which mooring we were on? It turns out one of the Talisker moorings was surveyed and found that the links in the chain had worn over half way through, this was the one we'd picked up. The only place this information could be found out was on the noticeboard in town, once you'd left your pride and joy on a mooring that "should not be used". Not ideal Talisker, either remove the mooring or put a notice on it. When I checked the notice board another notice had fallen in front of it, being a rural community the notice board was open.
We returned to the boat moved it to another mooring and I phoned Kevin from Marine Electrical Services in Falmouth to see what he could recommend. He talked me through a few tests and it seems our alternator isn't performing. We've ordered another one, but this left us with a delima. How to get it to us.
Our next stop was going to be the Outer Hebrides, but with out being able to charge the batteries from the engine and no shore power for the foreseeable future, we started to look at alternatives.
Get the alternator delivered to the Outer Hebrides, but where? Likewise we could get it delivered to Skye, but we'd have to hang around for it to be delivered, which might set us back. The problem with remote places is that they are erm...remote! So remote that TNT can't do a next day delivery so we wouldn't get anything until Monday. The forecast finally made our minds up Westerly 4 or 5 making a trip to the Hebrides uncomfortable, so we decided to miss out the Hebridies and go up the inside of Skye instead. This way we could get the alternator delivered to Kirsty's parents, meet up with my parents, visit Talisker Distillery, and give us more time to explore mainland Scotland north of Skye. It would mean doubling back on ourselves, but we could visit some of the places we'd missed. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but it would give us more time to relax and enjoy Scotland, something we hadn't felt we'd done enough of.
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