A meal to remember

We were preparing to leave Doune bay in the morning, when the yacht on the mooring behind us, called across "Morning, where's your forum burgee?" Kirsty went scrabbling through our locker with the flags in, and passed it up. The sweet looking double ended, clinker style yacht was owned by Malcolm and Moyra. Malcolm uses the YBW.com forum so knew Pixie and myself from there. He invited us over, but we were on our way out, so we dropped our mooring and motored over for a chat. We exchange cards before heading into Loch Hourn for lunch. Unfortunately tide was against us so we couldn't get to the top of the Loch, but we found a stunning little anchorage, meters from the shore in 10 metres of water. Kirsty made lunch while I tidied up on deck.



Just the sound of a stream running into the sea and the wind gently moving Pixie around. When the sun came out it was really hot, sadly it wasn't out for longer periods.

Kirsty had a snooze and I caught up with blogging. When we had phone reception again Kirsty spoke to her parents and they could come and meet us a day early, so rather than meeting on Monday, I could fit the new alternator on Sunday. It would mean we'd have to get up an hour earlier to make it through the Kyle Rhea with the tide, but getting a day in hand would be great.

From Loch Hourn we motored the short distance across the Sound of Sleat, and picked up a mooring off Ornsay. The mooring was owned by Duisedale House Hotel, a 4 star hotel over looking the sound. We saw it advertised in the "Welcome Anchorages" guide. A free simple magazine with a lot of anchorages and harbours listed, and maps of each makes it a valuabe freebie. The Duisdale's advert caught our eye because the food at the restaurant looked amazing, so we booked a table and a mooring. Yet another positive from going up the inside of Skye.

We took our dinghy ashore in the evening and walked up to the hotel. When we arrived there was a beautiful collection of classic and not so classic BMW's parked infront of the graceful stone hotel.


Once inside we were met by with a friendly welcome by David, who introduced us to the hotels owners who are also sailors, the hotel has it's own yacht, and they had been sailing on her that day.

The hotel has a shower for yachtsmen, and while it was the most expensive we've found, at £4.50 each, we had clean white towels and a spotless shower room to ourself. Worth every penny.

Clean and changed into smarter clothes, we ordered in the bar, and waited for our table.

From the bar we could see Pixie on her mooring, with Knoydart and Gleshiel in the distance. The view was beautiful, the food was exceptional, the wine was perfect. Not cheap, but worth it for an engagement meal for ourselves.