Wednesday 7 July Loch Spelve to Ardlanish 30 nm

Not a quiet night for various reasons. Swinging round our anchor like anything due to variable wind direction. The picture on the plotter looked like an untidy ball of wool! Left our anchorage and put the mainsail up with one reef in 🙄… and set off round the south coast if Mull. The sun came out and it was a lovely day for most of our way. Angelique sails well with one reef in, we don’t need the whole up unless it’s really light winds. For once ( at least for the first few miles) the wind was on the side so we could reach and go in the desired direction. That changed as we went round further south and the wind was all over the place but mainly on the nose as usual. A few sensible boats were coming the other way. We hadn’t really been out “at sea” for a while. It’s different from The more protected waters in and around the Lochs and islands. More waves…. less hazards. We really did have a great sail… despite the slight frustration of sailing up wind and getting knocked back on certain tacks. We saw only one boat behind us coming the same way , and selfishly hoped to get to the anchorage first as we knew it wasn’t very big. More a survival thought than a mean one. Having not been to the anchorage before it’s always a bit nerve racking. We motored the last nm and threaded our way into the anchorage between rocks in what looked more like a lunar landscape. It was indeed tight but the bottom was sand …. you could tell by the aqua colour of the water. The sand in this part of the world is white which creates the beautiful colour which is stunning even when the sun isn’t shining. We anchored in a pool surrounded by rock…. almost like a stone cauldron. An amazing place. Beautiful but in a way eerie. There was no one else there. No signal, no service, no WiFi. Not even a radio signal so no way of watching or listening to the game! We saw one seal, who looked like he’d been sent by his family to check out the white lump that had landed in their home. We also saw an eagle… we think ! Not sure what sort but massive wing span and very indented primary feathers. No noise of sea bird chatter or anything. We felt quite isolated in the world.