I don't believe it!

The weather yesterday was wet, grey and horrible. Today started off grey, and the forecast was indicating it might go up to a 7 for a time, so we thought we'd go for the long walk we were going to do yesterday. No sooner we were leaving Pixie than it strted to drizzle, but we set off on the 3 mile walk to Inverkirkaig, then a 2.25 mile walk up to the Kirkaig Falls.



We left around 9:30 and got back at 14:30, in time to watch the RNLI and Coastguard helicopter display. On the way back we checked the forecast which said 4 or 5, for the rest of the afternoon. We thought about making a run for it to get around The Point of Stoer, but it was blowing a 6, which wasn't forecast. So I didn't want to chance it.

We sat below out of the wind listening to Johnny Walker's sounds of the 70s during which the strength of the wind decreased. A quick look at the tide tables told me that we were too late to get the tide all the way around The Point of Stoer, but we could catch it most of the way and with the wind backing from SW to SWS it would give us a easier angle to sail, so we went for it. After I had decided, the wind, which had been a sociable 16 knots, built to 22, gusting at 26 when the time came to get Pixie out of her berth. Once into Lochinver we were seeing 26-30 knots over the deck, but by the time we'd got the sails up it was a steady 24 knots on the beam. With two reefs in the main and a handful of genoa we set off up the coast. The wind faded to 16 knots so we shook out the reefs and had a good sail with16-18 knots on the beam and a few big waves to make things interesting.

The wind slowly increased to around 20 knots so we reefed the mainsail and kept the speed in the 6 knot range. In no time we were closing on the Point of Stoer, and we got around before the tide turned. The SW had built a fair sized swell, a few breaking waves got past Pixie's sprayhood, but one managed to hit Pixie, sending a wall of water over the whole deck and us. It was like being hit full in the face with pillow while being rugby tackled, water went everywhere, down our necks and fronts leaving 6 inches of water in the bottom of the cockpit. There was no damage, but we were both soaked.

We carried the foul tide past the old man of Stoer, a stone stack off the cliffs, and once past the head of Stoer there was no waves, and no tide. Creaming along at 6-7 knots with the wind on the beam and the sun shining. Ok it was 8pm, but it was one of the best sails of the trip. We entered Loch Ned at just gone 21:00. And for the first time since Cornwall, nothing went wrong or broke. Sunshine, a fair wind and Pixie still in the same condition as when we left? It's a miracle!