Friday 14 August Ullapool to Badachro in Loch Gairloch 40 nm

The last two days have been very similar weather wise. Misty murk in the morning… really quite chilly, but it’s burnt off in the afternoon to reveal beautiful clear blue skies and a bright sunshiney day! We left Ullapool 8 ish as had about 8 hours to go. Unbeknown to us, the friend of a friend of a friend, lived or was staying somewhere overlooking the loch ,took a picture of us leaving suddenly appeared on Js WhatsApp ! If I’d know I was being watched I’d have dressed for the occasion and certainly not adopted such a stupid looking pose! Truth was I was looking out for lobster pot buoys…… of which there were a forest!…….and since I’m quite short I was standing on the seat whilst driving. Julian meanwhile was cooking the breakfast as we went along. Porridge( with jam) followed by bacon and egg bap🤪. We only had to motor for half hour or so as we headed back out past the beautiful summer isles . Soon we picked up a good 10 knots of breeze going in the perfect direction . We tend to try and do one hour at a time on “watch “ …. looking out for pots, ferries and all shipping etc as well as helming ( steering) . We use the autopilot a lot unless we are sailing up wind, as it is less tiring if you’re there for hours. The auto pilot takes quite a lot of charge out of the battery so having Trixi makes a lot of difference as otherwise we would have to run the engine. So far has worked well, though her work ethic is questionable and she seems to work flexitime ! Sometime in the morning we came across a big pod of common dolphins that were such fun to watch! I actually got some good footage on my phone but don’t know how to attach to the blog. They were obviously playing in the waves and they stayed with us a good 20 minutes. We are lucky enough to see dolphins most days but they don’t always come to play just where you feel you can almost touch them ! Gradually the mist rose to reveal the amazing coast line as we gybed our way south eventually getting to Gairloch as the mist was finally receding. These lochs up here in the highlands are completely amazing. They are huge but surrounded by the most stunning mountain scenery. It therefore becomes like sailing on a lake with flat water, gentler breeze and sunshine…what could be better! We pootled around the loch just enjoying exploring in the afternoon sun and taking lots of pictures! We eventually picked up a visitor mooring in Badachro….., an inlet behind an island on the south side.the buoys belonged to the inn on the shore so we looked forward to going ashore and having a meal there later. Disappointingly when we did eventually get there ….. it was sooooo crowded! We are so isolated in our own world we forget that places can be accessed by road and therefore people! Anyway they were fully booked for the next 5 days so we returned to the boat and opened a bottle of wine! Much more peaceful!

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What I learned today……………..watch out for things flailing about and tuck them away before they can get caught in anything! The sail cover has a long bit of tape on the zip so you can pull it easily. Today as we were pulling in the main sheet, the tape somehow got itself jammed in the upper pulley block making it impossible to move it. Luckily we were able to free it as we were only in light breeze ! But that one is a new one!!! And wouldn’t be nice if happened in strong wind 😳

Ps I have just discovered a little pocket on the end of the inside of the sail cover where it’s obviously supposed to go!! ( for anyone who might be sailing on Angelique in the future! )

Sue x

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