Repairs and modifications...

The nice weather meant I could fix the Aries (again). I had a nasty night at anchor in the Dornoch Firth towards the end of last season, and the violent movement somehow made the gear between the vane mechanism and the pendulum jump. I'm still trying to figure out how this happened - I couldn't 'force' it back.

Anyhow, I pressed the pin out in situ (see earlier post on this method) and got everything working again. This involved a lot of leaning over the stern and reaching out through the pushpit, tying tools to pieces of line in case I dropped them, trying not to swear ... I'm getting a bit stiff and old for these contortions and anxieties. It's good to get it working again though.

I also fitted a separate fuel tank for the Webasto heater:

It used to have a feed from the main fuel tank, but the line was quite long & the pump seemed to be making hard work of it. The heater would flame out or become smoky as a result. It took me a while to figure out what was happening but when I tried running it directly from a fuel can all the problems went away ...

You may wonder at the odd angle. I wanted the filler cap at the top, to avoid slopping fuel into the 'dry locker' (which has become a bit of a 'dirty store'). It all seems to have worked perfectly. Except I now have less excuse for putting '60/40' on my red diesel form. Power generation might count ...

Spring (?) Sail

At the end of January I had a two night trip to Portmahomack. It was cold, but the weather beckoned.

On the way back I had more wind than I (or Windy) anticipated.

After rounding Tarbat Ness I had a very fast reach over to Lossiemouth. Hard on the wind for the first hour, then 50-60 degrees off for the rest, not too much sea running.

I wasn't reefed, but would have put one in if I'd realised it was going to be so breezy. Mostly 17-20 apparent.

When I tied up in Lossiemouth, I had covered 22 nautical miles in three and a half hours - about 6.3 knots through the water

For more than an hour as I was approaching Lossiemouth, my boat speed stayed consistently above 7 knots. The conditions were ideal - a new wind, with little fetch (from the S, SW) meant there wasn't a sea running.

 

Bow Light

My bow light packed in on day one of the trip (overnight sail from Portsoy to Clachnaharry). It was a Lalizas FOS 20m LED unit - completely sealed - and it started to flash rather than stay on. It was about four years old.

I've replaced it with a Helas lamp plus an LED bulb - more conventional and more repairable.

It's a bit exposed, so I tried making a cage for it. Not an aesthetic triumph, but it will do for a week or two. I learned from the failure and have a better plan.

Home Again

From Stroma, we caught the last of the flood round Duncansby head and anchored in Sinclair's Bay. Here is the Duncansby race in calm conditions (4 knts through the water, and 8 over the ground):

From Sinclair's Bay we motored (again) back to Lossiemouth, passing through the Beatrice Field and the Smith Bank wind farm:

A nice sailing breeze from the East sprung up as we were putting out the ropes and fenders ...

Stroma

From Thurso Bay, we motored across to Stroma. I had been motoring for much of the way from the Summer Isles - clement weather has its drawbacks.

Entering Stroma harbour was a bit tricky - it's tiny, and there is a considerable eddy current just outside it. We chose to go in an hour or so before high water, and then let the boat dry out.

While we were there I got a chance to grease the prop, replace its anode, and check the CopperCoat (which looks pretty good, I think ..)

Stroma was abandoned in the early 1960s, just after the harbour was built. Local folklore has it that the wages from building the harbour financed the final exodus ...

Kinlochbervie to Talmine

Another trip I've done before. Here's a phone video of Cape Wrath - I should have used the GoPro (if it seems a bit long, skip to nearer the end when the cliffs of the North Coast appear):

On other visits to Talmine, I've anchored behind Rabbit Island. This time, I wanted to go ashore, so anchored in the bay:

I had to leave earlier than expected - my son was due to join me, but his bus arrived late in Thurso and he missed the connection to Talmine. There were only two buses a week, so far as we could see online.

I decided to head through to Scrabster, where I picked him up late in the evening before anchoring in Thurso bay. (Mean or what?)

Handa Island

I've sailed past Handa on many occasions, but never managed to stop and explore. So this time ...

 

 Again, very much enhanced by clement weather ... 

 After Handa, I spent a quick night in Kinlochbervie, getting diesel, water and groceries.

Teetering ... and then Summer Isles

At this stage, I could have gone back South and up the canal. I decided to go North - there were a few things I wanted to explore up there, and it promised to be quicker. And cheaper. (!)

From Kyleakin I visited Loch Carron, where some head-scratching revealed to me that I'd have to get a move on if I wanted to be back in Lossiemouth in time to take some booked appointments in Aberdeen in the week commencing the 29th of July. I started with a sixty-mile hop to the Summer Isles.

The anchorage I went into there reminded me of how vulnerable I felt following the Navionics chart into Loch Beag (at the top of Loch Hourn). I have two tablets, and now keep them both running when I'm in tight spaces ...

The Summer Isles anchorage was magical, and the weather was perfect. I had a small run ashore.

The Next Loch - Loch Duich

Before stopping in Kyleakin, I spent a night at the top of Loch Duich. A friend asked whether my video had been commissioned by the Scottish Tourism authorities, and I told him that I wouldn't be disciplined by the gods of kitsch:

I saw this evidence of Scotland's somewhat stressed land ownership patterns:

And here's a sunset from my friend's mooring in Kyleakin, where I left 'Raasay' for a week:

Part 3 - Things Start to Get Better ...

From Eigg, I visited Loch Hourn. Part of the theme of this year's cruise was visiting some of the long sea-lochs I hadn't visited before, and this one was high on the list. It was unequivocally spectacular. I went to the top of the loch, and visited Loch Beig (through a difficult S-shaped channel, that left me dangling by my Navionics tablet for a few tense minutes ...).

I didn't anchor in Loch Beig, because I didn't want to be tide constrained, but anchored at the top of the main loch instead. Photos and videos can't really do it justice, but here are a few:

After Loch Hourn, I spent a few hours anchored off Sandaig, waiting for the tide to help me up the Sound of Sleat.

A difficult trip to the West (Part 2) ...

From Strontian, I made a wet trip to Muck. The wind had dropped, but Ardnamurchan was still a bit sloppy. 

I had to spend a week back in Aberdeen in mid trip, and was planning to put the boat in a marina or on a public mooring. Fortunately, a friend had just departed for his annual cruise, and I could use his mooring in Kyleakin. He and his family (and five cats...) were also making a stop in Eigg, so I took the short hop from Muck to Eigg South Bay to meet up with them.

We had a nice wall ashore to the 'Massacre Cave', which has a danger sign at the entrance: