After a peaceful night it was lovely to wake to sunshine and blue skies for a change. A bit breezy in the loch but nice flat water and letting go of the yucky mooring strop was easy. I used marigolds! Our plan was to give our visitors a taste of the wild Hebrides and stop at a couple of isolated lochs on our way to Loch Maddy which looked nice in the “ Welcome anchorages” ….a relatively new pontoon arrangement with facilities etc. The wind was supposed to blow 4-6 from the southeast so we decided to sail just with the headsail out. This gives you the benefit of less worry of the accidental gybe making the job of helming less stressful and being able to go in and out of places easily with no mainsail to worry about. With a strong following wind we were still doing 5-7 knots. The waves were quite big and journey a bit roly but the sunshine persisted and we had amazing views right across to Skye and Rhum. Our first stop was for coffee at Loch Keiravaigh. Because it was sunny , the colours come alive…… blues of the water and sky with bright green bracken, purple heather and lichen coated white-grey rock. Once in the relative shelter the water is flat and we anchored in about 10 m water in the pool. Complete wilderness. Just us and a few seabirds. Coffee and cake followed by a bit of bird watching until setting off again. Sue and I had decided to get to grips with gull identification and enthusiastically set about the task, book in hand.Sues phone is now full of pictures of sea with white (and grey) blobs on. We became a bit disheartened when we realised that the different gulls are not just juvenile or adult…. they change their appearance not only at 1,2and 3 years of age, they also have different plumage at different times of the year AND female and male. So many variables! No wonder they just get called seagulls! We think we saw common gulls, lesser black backed( or were they great…..)and of course herring gulls……. back to the sailing. We proceeded up the coast and the wind was getting up a bit … gusting up to 28 knots. We changed plan for lunch stop to a more protected anchorage in Loch Eport. This stretch of coastline is so indented with numerous lochs, there is a lot of choice but they are difficult to identify from the sea, and are very rock strewn…a lot of which are covered with water and not visible. I can’t imagine navigating into them without the electronic gps plotters that we have nowadays. Loch Eport proved to be a good choice and we anchored about 200m from a seaweedy island which was obviously home to a family of grey seals. There must have been about 30 of them including babies basking in the sunshine. Though called grey these ones were definitely beige. Lovely to just watch them in their home environment. The weather was cloudy by the time lunch was over but it was only a few miles further on to Loch Maddy. Not having been there before we weren’t sure what the arrangement would be so set up fenders both sides and lines that could be swapped if necessary. All seemed well at this point. On nearing the pontoons, the wind suddenly out of nowhere went up to 38 knots of wind from behind 😳. The area for manoeuvre was tight to say the least with the pontoon (s) sitting in a area between the ferry terminal on the right and a rocky island on the left. There was no way of going backwards in that wind and Julian had seconds to decide what to do. He managed somehow to turn the boat at full throttle towards the pontoon and amazingly land the boat broadside on, head on to the wind. A chap was on the pontoon who took a line for us and fended the bow off as best he could. Thank you ! Not sure our fenders will ever be the same again! Look at the pictures! Tim commented that it was difficult to remember exactly what happened but suffice to say we and the boat are all safe and near disaster averted. Interestingly the picture in “welcome anchorages”, completely misses out either the ferry terminal or the rock!!!! To add to that…. all the facilities have been bulldozed!!!!!
Catabatic winds are notorious in this part of the world, and I now know why they use the word “ferocious “ to describe them!
An exciting day was finished off with a really lovely meal in the Loch Maddy hotel.All peace and normality!
What I learned today………………..the real meaning of the phrase “Between a rock and a hard place” …….
Sue x
Sue P on seat 
Spot the seal 
Squashed fenders ☹️ 
Angelique second mast to the right 
Supper! 
Loch Maddy hotel 
Cameras do lie! Obviously taken from the rock!
The rock! 
Bulldozed facilities
Common gulls?????
Angelique 