With the music from Tiree ringing in our ears we were off northwards again but with a quick diversion via the Treshnish Islands, famous, we were told, for their puffins.
For a change the wind was in our favour, a nice south-easterly breeze so having slipped our mooring off Tiree we were amongst the islands within a couple of hours. We saw puffins; quite a lot of them although we did have some difficulty differentiating them from guillemots – there were lots of those too!
We were as impressed with the geology as the bird life though. From the sea the ‘columnar basalt’ that is apparently a continuation of the Giant’s Causeway near Portrush was particularly impressive and we think we identified Fingal’s Cave.
Leaving the islands behind us we then had a really good sail past the Corrachadh Mor (the westernmost point of mainland UK) and around Ardnamurchan Lighthouse. From Ardnamurchan we were able to bear away to the East and head towards Loch Moidart. I had been taken to Loch Moidart and Castle Tioram by the Highland Hemms, the Fort William chapter of the Price family, around twenty years ago and had been impressed by it; standing on it’s own island at the head of the loch and was keen to return.
The navigation up Loch Moidart was interesting! A very narrow entrance that zig-zags between submerged rocks but we were on a rising tide, had consulted the appropriate pilot books and had all electronic navigation systems available – including our mobile phones! We were able to anchor behind the castle and headed ashore to explore. Sadly the castle is in a dangerous state of disrepair due to a planning dispute but the anchorage and whole setting is stunning, even on a fairly cloudy evening!
After supper on board we ‘turned in’ relatively early as high water the following morning was at 0500 and we did not want to remain until the following afternoon. In the event the wind blew increasingly hard overnight so the skipper had a broken night fretting about the proximity of the rocky loch shores – it was a relief to be pulling up the anchor when dawn broke!
We were safely out of the loch and quickly on our way up towards Mallaig and the promise of showers and laundry facilities!
The marina at Mallaig was excellent, partly due to European funding! The showers were the best we had experienced and the washing and drying machines all worked too!
Mallaig itself was interesting .. we quickly realised that it was unwise to try and find fish and chips at lunchtime as the ‘Harry Potter’ steam train from Fort William will have disgorged all it’s passengers who, along with a few ferry passengers will all have had the same idea as you! We also found the pubs fairly soul-less – they seemed to have been ‘modernised’ to the extent that any atmosphere was completely removed and the lack of staff due to COVID, BREXIT or just about any other cause had a significant impact.
It was comfortable to be alongside though so we stayed in Mallaig for a couple of days, during which we refuelled with diesel (cheap red from the fishermen), filled up with water, washed ourselves and our clothes and generally had a good rest.
From Mallaig we headed up through the Kyles of Lochalsh in some fairly ‘iffy’ weather, had a quick diversion to another castle, Dornie, and then under the Skye bridge and a mooring in Plockton.
Although the weather was not brilliant the Kyles of Lochalsh are clearly a beautiful area for sailing and deserved far more time and exploration than we gave. Plockton was a complete surprise. This was a pretty little village that had cottages with beautifully tended gardens, lots of nice yachts on moorings and felt more like a Devon village than the Scottish highlands, that is until you looked up towards the hills!
But we only had a night here – we were off to Skye tomorrow, then to the Hebrides and then up the coast and, hopefully, in the Orkneys early in August.
