From the Isle of Rum we sailed due East to Mallaig where we briefly stopped for reprovisioning. We then continued on into Loch Nevis to achieve another of Neill’s childhood dreams by visiting the village of Inverie. The village has a road but it is not joined to the rest of the mainlands road network. You either walk two days across the mountains or go by boat. We took a visitors mooring in front of the pub and went there for dinner. The Old Forge is billed as being mainland UK’s most remote pub. The food was good and the view through the window was stunning and changed every minute. Real Life is so much better than HDTV 🙂
The next day we walked around the village and made good use of the pubs WiFi. Neill also lost our bridle hook (used to secure the anchor) in to the depths of the loch.
On Saturday we returned to Mallaig to try and replace the bridle hook and then tacked our way north up the Sound of Sleet. Our tacking is getting better but I really need to learn to reef earlier. We anchored for the night in the shelter of Ornsay Island just off the Isle of Skye.
Sunday dawned sunny and windless so we used the morning to do our washing. At midday we had to leave so that we would reach the tidal gate at Kyle Rhea at the correct phase of the tide. A mistake in the calculations here would have seen us trying to fight an 8 knot current the wrong way or being washed on to the waiting rocks. Luckily we avoided all such disasters.
Once under the Skye Bridge we set sail and tacked to the Island of Scalpay. Slowly we are getting the hang of sail handling. We then sailed in to the beautiful Loch na Cairidh where we are now anchored under a full moon surrounded by hills.
For the last three days we have been sailing through the most amazing scenery. A continuously changing panorama of mountains and sea.
WOW