The plan was a day in Tarbert before pressing south to the Uists, but the weather up here rarely reads the plan. Thursday was forecast to bring something strongish from an unhelpful quarter, which left us with the usual menu of options: motor into wind and sea (uncomfortable), beat into it (uncomfortable-ish, and longer, with three hours of foul tide thrown in as a parting gift), or simply not go. We were still weighing this up when we noticed a perfectly good gravelly beach sitting right beside the harbour wall.

A word with Kiki, the incredibly cheerful and helpful Harbourmaster, secured us the loan of his pressure washer. We’d noticed Heydays losing a little speed through the water lately, so the decision rather made itself: we would stay, and beach her on Wednesday.

The same conversation with Kiki revealed he also keeps a few lobster pots. Not free this time (he resisted Yee Tak’s charms) but a couple of fresh lobsters later, dinner was sorted.

The village also runs to a surprisingly good deli and grocery selection, which came in handy for Chris, whose enthusiasm for seafood is, let’s say, measured, and who was glad of some non-lobster options for her own dinner.

The distillery is young by whisky standards but observes proper Hebridean-summer form regardless, with a fire going and sofas comfortable enough to threaten the rest of the afternoon. A couple of tasting flights and a glass of their own Harris gin duly saw off what remained of it. Just the lobsters left to deal with.

Harris Tweed remains firmly in demand, even as the ranks of local weavers thin. The colours are extraordinary, and we did briefly entertain re-upholstering Heydays in it — a thought that survived approximately as long as it took to hear the price of £55 a metre.

Dinner on board was a genuine 4 way collaboration with lobsters cooked and cracked, a cheesy veggie bake and a couple of fish cakes all preceded by some gin and washed down with the odd glass of wine…

Wednesday morning we tied up alongside the dock wall shortly after low tide, and waited…

This corner of Harris is very nearly its own island — a ten-minute walk across the isthmus gets you to the little harbour on the Atlantic side…with only a single cormorant to annoy by disturng her peace…

With the tide out and the old girl’s bottom exposed, we got to work with the pressure washer. Coppercoat has served us well, though as suspected we’d picked up a bit of weedy fouling in Ullapool, along with some tube worm attached to the prop. Antifouling protection, we’re learning, varies enormously around these shores. A few scuff marks dealt with later andshe was looking respectable again, and a bowl of Cullen Skink in the hotel was calling, thick, creamy, and brilliantly fishy.

We stayed through the afternoon waiting for the water to return, a wait made considerably more bearable by a scone and a cream tea. By early evening we had water under the keel again and headed back to the berth in a gathering drizzle.

Footnote: today was also the day of the eclipse. Thick cloud and thicker drizzle meant we could only read about the wondrous scenes back home as the moon briefly took charge of the sun. Undeterred, as the evening slid from merely gloomy to very gloomy indeed, we put the eclipse specs on anyway.

12 August…Fog is not glorious!

The plan was to mooch south with the tide to North Uist. By early morning we could barely make out the ferry a hundred metres away, which is not encouraging when the alternative is threading rocky islets, sat nav or no sat nav. We held on until the last possible moment before the tidal gate shut. The pea-souper, however, has other ideas, and so, for one more day, do we…