Tuesday 6 July Loch Aline to Loch Spelve 16 nm

Surprisingly nice day given the weather the day before. set off early morning to get tides right for sound of Mull. Light breeze and beautiful starry lit water as we sailed slowly east towards Lismore. Just in case they read this, I took some lovely pictures of the Arcona we were berthed near in Salen. It’s always really difficult to get nice pictures of your own boat under sail so I quite often take some that I can hand over if we happen to meet that boat again. I know she came from Falmouth and I think is an Arcona 40. We passed Duart castle ( Still under scaffolding sadly) and came across an enormous Fred Olsen cruise ship coming up the firth of Lorne. The good thing about motoring is that you can hug the coastline and just enjoy the landscape. We arrived at the entrance to Loch Spelve late morning. It’s quite narrow and the green perch ( metal pole in the water) that used to be marking a rock in the channel had gone. Probably Covid to blame…. however we navigated it fine and were interested to see more extensive fish farming than used to be here. Particularly the mussel beds. We anchored in the NW corner. I had noted on the Antares charts that it mentions mussels for sale at the fish farm pontoon so we got in the dinghy after a sandwich and drove over. We bought a 2kg bag of mussels for £2.50! The afternoon was hot and sunny and I read my book on the foredeck as it was too hot in the cockpit. We had neighbouring yacht. The lady was paddle boarding around in a bikini. Putting us to shame as ours is yet to be got out of its bag. We cooked the mussels for our dinner and they were delicious! We also watched Spain vs Italy which Italy won on penalties. Bit disappointing as we had thought it was the England game ….but learned that is tomorrow! When we’ll most likely be completely out of any contact with the outside world.

What I learned today…….. how to cook moulle 😋 … with limited ingredients

Sue x