Everything went almost according to plan. We had one small worry and a larger one going out over the Findhorn bar. The small one was that the engine overheated briefly, making us turn around. We picked up a mooring to check it - filter, impeller etc. - and couldn't find anything wrong. The warning alarm had actually switched itself off before we stopped, so it looked like something transient.
The large one was that the bar conditions were very bad - there had been a day or two (I think) of northeasterlies, so there was a heavy swell and large breakers. I was following a GPS track out (no channel bouys this early in the season), and it was very hard work - a lot of motion and confusion. It's easy to become disoriented: at one point I drifted north of my track, finding it hard to believe that the deep water was really among all those whitecaps. It was, of course, and the echo sounder quickly informed me of my error - I was sure we were going to bump the sand.
Unfortunatley, the trip over the bar made one crewmember seasick - he didn't recover until some hours after arriving in Inverness. There weren't many other places we could have dropped him off, and we weren't going back into Findhorn ...
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