Thursday morning, and finally back on the water. We slipped the last of the mooring lines just after 0900 to catch the tail of the south-going tide through the southerly part of the Little Minch…no great feat of pilotage, but the sort of small discipline that saves an hour of frustration later. The forecast promised southwest force 3 to 5, backing west later, which was not entirely the wind we wanted but was at least not blowing us off the water…and with the added bonus of being able to see. Our enforced layovers in Stornoway and Tarbert have left us slightly behind our own schedule, so there was a mild, self-inflicted pressure to make distance. The plan, loosely held, was Loch Carnan on South Uist by evening, with Barra to follow on Saturday if all went well.

We eased out past the lock at Tarbert with the wind kindly on our stern, main up, expecting it to head us the moment we turned the corner south — which, with the reliable perversity of west coast winds, it duly did. A Norwegian-registered vessel lying in the loch turned out on inspection to be one of the work boats that service the salmon farms: a floating factory whose job is to bathe farmed fish in fresh water to strip off the sea lice that thrive in close-packed cages. We are not yet prepared to renounce salmon entirely, but the image of listless, lice-ridden fish being freshened up before market does rather take the shine off a smoked salmon sandwich.

Visibility was moderate, good enough to see the mainland and Skye on the horizon, not good enough to call it anything better. We motor-sailed for a stretch with the wind stubbornly on the nose, the main earning its keep only nominally, in the manner familiar to anyone who has spent time matching a schedule against a west coast forecast. A purist might object that one should simply go where the wind allows, which today would have carried us pleasantly across to Skye a lovely island, but one we have visited before, whereas the Uists and Barra have not yet had the pleasure of our acquaintance, and it seemed a shame to let the wind make that decision for us.

A yacht under full sail put out from an anchorage to the south and, having assessed us under motor and main, making reasonable way. Apparently they decided that being a purist was overrated, or simply that they too wanted the miles, so they rolled away their genoa and settled onto much the same as our course, mainsail up, into the same obstinate southwesterly. We shared their impatience for the forecast’s promised backing to the west.

Traffic on the water was more varied than usual: the CalMac ferry pushing north on schedule, a couple of coasters, creel boats tending their lobster and crab pots, and a catamaran running north with the wind comfortably behind her — the easy option, and not remotely available to us.

Early afternoon brought the promised veer to the west, and Heydays finally settled into proper sailing, alternating between glorious weak sunshine and squalls that reduced visibility to something approaching nothing, the coastline appearing and disappearing in turn.

A change of plan, and the Uists

With a helpful tide now under us, we were making good progress, and about an hour short of Loch Carnan, our nominal destination, we decided the conditions merited pressing on. The chart showed an anchorage in Loch Eynort a couple of hours further south, which would leave us within five hours’ sailing of Barra and slightly ahead of ourselves for once.

South Uist, whose coast we were now working down, was not an island we knew anything much about before this trip, a gap in our education we made some effort to remedy over the course of the afternoon. It turns out to be famous, among other things, as the birthplace of Flora MacDonald, who in 1745 rowed Bonnie Prince Charlie away from these shores disguised as her Irish maid, Betty Burke, a story we vaguely recognised from school history, and a very incomplete set of lyrics to ‘speed bonnie boat…’ without ever quite placing it here. It is a slightly improbable thing to learn while sailing past the very coastline in question…

We found Loch Eynort entirely empty of other boats, and set about identifying the best shelter from the westerly still blowing down its length. The shoreline here shelves quickly and is thoroughly unforgiving of complacency; our preferred anchoring depth of around 10 metres brought us in closer to the rocks than we would normally choose, and the alternative, anchoring in deeper water with a length of warp bent onto the chain, we set aside in favour of a first attempt on chain alone, motoring around the loch to assess the holding before committing.

In 10 metres we let go the anchor and watched Heydays settle back onto her chain until it came bar taut, always the reassuring moment, the point at which a length of galvanised steel chain either proves its worth or doesn’t. We had veered enough chain to allow for a further two metres of tidal rise, putting us at a scope of something over four to one, comfortably beyond the minimum and enough to sleep on without excessive vigilance. We checked the chart again for the state of the rocks at low water, satisfied ourselves that we had room to swing, and settled in for an evening with no other sign of human presence anywhere in view, not even, remarkably for these parts, a sheep.

There is a particular joy to anchoring somewhere entirely alone. It is not that we object to company; simply that such places are increasingly rare in our crowded corner of the world, and worth noting when they present themselves. We set anchor alarms nonetheless, and woke a couple of times through the night to check that all remained as we had left it, a small price on an otherwise undisturbed peace.

Following the established morning routine of tea and coffee administered from a horizontal position, we eventually achieved sufficient motivation to prepare the vessel for departure. The plan: retrace our wake down the Sound of Mull, turn to port at the bottom, and proceed up Loch Linnhe, with an overnight stop in Loch a Choire, before continuing to Corpach/Fort William and the entrance to the Caledonian Canal.

A brief foray ashore for last-minute provisions, then into the sailing gear. The day was bright and clear, but the sun and wind seemed not to have agreed on who was coming out on top today.

We slipped the mooring just after 1pm, under a double-reefed main and headed out into what proved to be a near-dead run.

The Sound of Mull funnelled gusts down its steep sides with its customary lack of subtlety, and we maintained a respectful level of concentration to avoid any accidental gybes. A handful of sailing boats were beating up toward Tobermory…

…we kept clear as required and got on with our afternoon.

Soup and sandwiches did their job, but he scenery did considerably more than its job. The sailing was glorious, with little cottages and hidden beaches…

Bearing away into Loch Linnhe, the wind came more firmly onto the quarter, which improved both the boat speed and the general atmosphere on deck. We also noted not for the first time that sailing in enclosed waters has a distinct psychological advantage over open passages: there is always something to aim for. In this case, a succession of large and impressive mountains (although not to Chris, who comes from a land of properly high mountains called the Rockies…), which are considerably more encouraging than a featureless grey sea.

As the afternoon wore on, the wind increased and began to head us, so we dropped to motor-sailing under the main alone. Purists may raise an eyebrow, but it kept us in the sheltered inshore waters, made use of the weaker tidal streams, and, crucially, kept things manageable as the gusts crept above 30 knots approaching Loch a Choir. The reefs earned their keep.

Mainsail furled, we motored the final stretch directly into 30-plus knots, running through the options for anchoring or mooring in what the pilot book diplomatically describes as subject to “often violent squalls in strong winds.” The pilot book, on this occasion, was not exaggerating.

The Old Boat House restaurant at the head of the loch, keeps a few mooring buoys for visiting boats. Only one other vessel was in residence, sensibly so, given the conditions, and we picked up a free buoy with the quiet relief of people who had been giving the anchoring question rather more thought than we would have liked.

A call to the restaurant confirmed we were welcome to use the mooring overnight, whether or not we came ashore to eat. A generous gesture, really kind.

The backdrop was quite beautiful, mountains on all sides, the loch settled despite the wind, the light beginning to shift toward evening. We decided to go ashore for dinner.

The Old Boat House turned out to be exactly right, six tables, run by a couple, unhurried and excellent….

We settled in as the sun dropped behind the mountains and threw long reds and oranges across the water, and agreed that the day had gone rather well.

There is something genuinely stirring about cold northern waters in bright sunshine. The discomfort is real, but so is everything else.

A near-perfect day.

The morning forecast is suggesting SW or W F3 to F5 but at least there is no rain on the horizon and the river most definitely looks so much nicer in the early sun than yesterday afternoon’s downpour. There is even a woman and her dog pulling out along the river…

Decision made, and instead of slugging across in a headwind to Falmouth, we opt for Fowey. This should be (almost) possible if the wind has a decent bit of south in it and we want to give it another go. We were there 7 years ago and arrived in the midst of some festival or other, where all the pubs and restaurants were only doing drinks and no food. The place was rammed with loads of boozing and we got royally ripped off in the only place serving food which was an over-priced and very surly Indian….not that we are bitter or twisted!

The wind has already being blowing most of the night and we slide out of the river into quite a swell from the SW. We round the Mewstone rocks and set sail across Plymouth and try to clear Rame head. Sadly not quite and we need to tack back south before we can make a decent course. The sea is definitely lumpier than completely comfortable, but Heydays laps it up and most of the sea stays outside the boat! The weather is glorious and we are in the company of a few other boats making their way west. The submarines (if indeed they are there) don’t make themselves felt and we scud out across Whitsands bay in a freshening breeze. As the afternoon wears on the wind and the seas build with (we assume) the onset of sea breezes. With the headland refusing to move to allow us to make Fowey in one fetch, we tack out once more and the occasional sea decides that it would be better inside our cockpit than out. Still, the sailing is glorious, but we are all painfully aware that our days of taking this for more than just an afternoon seem long gone. We hear a couple of  coastguard calls, one for a yacht which has washed ashore not far from our position, but with no sign of the lone sailor on passage from Roscoff. Boats in the vicinity are being asked to look out…

Another yacht has lost its mast and is looking for a tow in. We are grateful we had our rigging renewed last summer.

Of the dismasted yacht and the missing sailor we see no sign, and we finally begin to close the entrance to Fowey. Grateful for some respite from the constant bracing against the rollers from the west. We are directed to the last remaining walk ashore pontoon and soon a french yacht is also rafted up outside. With lines snug we are in the cockpit with gin and tonic within 10 minutes and bask in the glory of another hardy and  (to us at least) heroic beat to windward.

Thankfully no festival today but almost all the restaurants are fully booked. We end up in a completely un-prepossessing  pub called the Lugger, but which serves up a great few dishes at prices well below some of the ‘nicer’ restaurants. They deserve more recognition in our humble opinion.

A pleasingly uneventful night in studland sees a rather watery sun trying to
breakthrough as we get togged up for a beat along the normally stunning Dorset Coast.
We slip the mooring and head out past Old Harry and his wife and pick up a reasonably
gentle swell rolling up the channel.

There is firing today on the Lulworth Ranges so we need to need to keep at least 3 ½
miles offshore. As it happens this suits us at the moment just in terms of where
the wind is coming from so we head out south past a rather grey and overcast Swanage
and leave Durlston behind on a beat into a chilly F5. The west going tide starts to make a
mark and we begin the relatively slow passage west.
Oddly there are a few boats behind us who opt for the passage closer inshore. Have
we got the firing times completely wrong? We are vindicated a short while later as we
hear the coastguard (relatively politely at first) requesting that they alter course to avoid
being shot at….actually I made that last bit up, but a Navy protection boat most
definitely makes things clear.
Of the stunning Dorset Coast we see little, and Lulworth, Durdle Door and
Chapmans Pool are points on the chart, passing by in the gloom. Never mind we say,
this is June so we must be enjoying ourselves!
Actually the sail is exhilarating as Heydays scuds along with a double reef main and a
couple of rolls in the genoa. We have found over the years, that we could pile mo8re sail
on and get maybe another half knot, but at the loss of balance and calm. So 5 to 6kts is
fine by us and allows for a civilised and even peaceful cockpit. We catch a few decent spells of blue sky to remind us of what it could be like…

It takes ages for Portland to decide to show itself, and we anchor finally just as the sun
makes itself felt once more. There are few other visiting yachts, but the harbour is a real playground
for all sorts of foiling windsurfers, kite surfers and assorted high speed wizzy stuff.

A late lunch, a snooze in the sun….

.. and then the clouds come back, the wind picks up and we have a 3 course meal
tucked up in the cockpit all washed down with some aperitifs and the last of a box of
Rose. Early start in the morning for another beat across Lyme Bay to Brixham….weather
permitting…