Thursday 30 July Canna to Loch boisdale. Outer Hebrides 36 nm

Well Trixi started whirring sometime in the dark if the night. She only starts if the wind is excess of 12 knots. There were obviously waves developing and we were aware that the wind was going to change direction into the east at some stage. That just makes for a bit of uncomfortable night. A bit of an issue was that we had absolutely no service/ no signal on our phones and the VHF radio didn’t seem to work either so we’re completely reliant on the previous 24 hours weather forecast being accurate. Knowing that the weather was going to deteriorate but there was a best window of opportunity early in the day, if not we might be stuck there for a few days. So got up 7 ish, looked out of the window… panicked 🤭 The wind had changed completely to an easterly as was forecast which meant it was blowing straight into the bay. Dropped our lovely mooring and Set of into the grey murk and headed downwind towards the outer Hebrides. We had to go a bit north as you can’t sail completely downwind and then gybed when the gps plotter gave us 60 degrees on our bearing to our destination Loch Boisdale. Once gybed we headed directly there. The weather was horrid, rain , rough sea state and winds gusting to 28 knots along with deteriorating visibility. All yuk and NOT my favourite.

we did see on the way, puffins, storm petrols and sooty shear waters which was my reward!

However Julian said it was exhilarating and exciting and I must mention surfing down waves at 9.5 knots 😳. GPS speed !thank goodness for the gps plotter VDS kindly have Julian as his retirement present…. ( like a car sat nav) It is amazing! I particularly like it cos it tells you where other boats are coming from and how fast they’re going etc and you can always expect one to appear out of the mist approaching on your left. In a great huge sea and there is always one coming just where and when you don’t want it! Couldn’t see a thing going into Loch boisdale but the plotter perfectly accurate and a harbour master waiting to take our lines so despite strong onshore winds in the Marina managed a pretty competent landing!! What a relief! For the rest of today the wind has been blowing old boots and expected 50 knot winds this evening. Thank goodness we’re here! What a difference a day makes. Rested, read, wrote and had a lovely supper of chicken, ratatouille and the last of potato Mikes potatoes.

What I learned today………. that you have to be able to gybe at an angle of sixty degrees. Useful to know so you don’t gybe until you can approach your destination and hopefully you won’t have to do it again ! I realise that doesn’t make much sense…….

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