June 21, 2026

19th to 21st June… winding down, gradually, and a final sail.

We’ve decided to leave the boat here in Ullapool while we scoot back south for July. There’s a good bus service to Inverness, where the car is, and more importantly it’s a sensible jumping off point for our planned trip to the Outer Hebrides and the Small Isles in August, where, hopefully, Chris will join us.

We arranged for a water taxi to bring us ashore in time for the 10am bus to Inverness. On the radio, checking whether they’d called us, we hear another yacht asking if there’s space on a pontoon, having watched someone leave. We put the same question to the harbourmaster and get the same answer, yes, there’s a berth, and yes, they can take us. We’re fond of lying to a mooring in surroundings like these, but we need diesel, water, and to get a few things sorted before the drive home, so a pontoon is genuinely useful, and there’s a happy side effect for the local economy too, since we end up spending rather more ashore. Overindulgence in the pub is not, after all, ideal preparation for a dinghy ride back to the boat in fading light.

With indecent haste, Heydays slips the mooring buoy and motors towards the harbour. The harbourmaster is waiting and puts us onto a berth normally kept for the tenders ferrying cruise passengers ashore. We’ll have a couple of nights here before returning to the mooring, where she’ll sit snugly for the next month.

On our earlier call, the harbourmaster had mentioned, almost in passing, that their laundry and shower facilities are “the best in Scotland.” Tied up and squared away, we wander over to the office and are met by an enthusiastic, helpful team who are clearly proud of what’s been done for visiting boats. The whole harbour has been done up properly, and it’s a genuine pleasure to be here. We can’t speak for the rest of Scotland, but they are, without question, the best facilities we’ve come across so far.

We’d pre booked bus tickets on a tip from Ian and Maureen aboard Andiamo, and it proves an excellent piece of advice, the bus back is packed with passengers fresh off the Stornoway ferry.

Back in Inverness, we pick up a couple of decent carabiners, ready for a trial run up the mast using a borrowed mast climbing system.

The forecast had threatened wet and windy, but back in Ullapool there’s barely a hint of rain and conditions are calm enough, so up the mast it is. Deep joy.

This means getting into the bosun’s chair, an item that looks and feels like a giant blue nappy and carries roughly the same amount of dignity. We hoist a line with the mast climber attached, and fix a prusik knot to the chair. The system works like this: sit in the chair, feet into the straps, then stand, which raises and locks a foot bar beneath you. From standing, you push the prusik up the line, sit back down, and repeat the cycle all the way to the top. The YouTube video made it look entirely straightforward.

Reality was fine to begin with, though the YouTube mast had, conveniently, none of the clutter ours has, halyards, winches, cleats, all needing to be negotiated on the way up, and the result was a certain amount of unnerving see sawing early on. Relax, James, we’re only two metres off the deck. Next, the descent. The theory is that you sit back in the chair as before, then lift your feet with a twisting motion to unlock the foot bar, while simultaneously pressing down to release the prusik. Sadly, my ankles and knees turn out not to be quite double jointed enough for the manoeuvre, and instead of descending, I continue, mysteriously, to inch upward. A small audience on the dockside takes a renewed interest in proceedings.

Fortunately, John is on hand, releases the foot bar from below, and I begin inching back down, which, thankfully, works. Had this happened at the top of the mast rather than two metres up, John would have been considerably less on hand. A rethink is clearly required, and in any case, mast climbing is overrated. We do our best to look composed, as though this had been the plan all along, and retreat below. Lunchtime, conveniently.

Ullapool itself is lovely and seems to be thriving. We stumble on a little courtyard called The Seafood Shack, which comes with the considerable bonus of a small gin bar shed serving Loch Achall Gin, distilled nearby at Rhidorroch Distillery. Both food and gin are excellent, tempura battered haddock in a wrap, monkfish stew, langoustines, all cooked properly and priced fairly.

The rest of the afternoon goes on laundry, sparing us the indignity of hauling dirty washing home and back again. A domestic chore of a paragraph, this one.

There’s a bar and restaurant near the ferry terminal, name withheld, since I don’t believe in saying anything unless it’s broadly kind. We were shown to a couple of uncomfortable bar stools, despite fourteen of the sixteen tables sitting empty, and charged £7 a pint for Guinness. Six langoustines, we noted, came to £39. We left, and went instead to The Arch Inn, a genuinely friendly pub with views over the loch, where Guinness was £5.50. The Seafood Shack, by contrast, charged £14 for five langoustines. Just saying. The good places are out there, just not always the obvious ones. Ullapool in the evening sunshine is lovely…

Sunday morning dawns bright, and we need to clear our pontoon berth to make way for tenders from an incoming cruise ship. With the weather holding, we decide to explore Isle Martin and Loch Kanaird instead. We slip away and are soon sailing in a fresh but distinctly changeable breeze, the steep sided loch and valleys throwing down sudden downdrafts and gusts with little warning. Still, a fine morning to be sailing. CalMac makes its usual scheduled appearance, and just as we bear away towards the island, the cruise liner rounds the headland behind us, we’re simply glad to be out of Ullapool for the day.

The coastline and surrounding islets are wonderfully craggy, riven with deep fissures in the rock. The bay behind the island offers good shelter, with just one other yacht at anchor. The cliffs drop almost sheer into the sea, and even fifty metres or so off the shore we’re still showing twenty metres on the depth sounder, a world away from the muddy shoals we’re used to in the Solent. We finally drop the hook in ten metres, close enough that a decent run up might just get you ashore. We’re only stopping for lunch, in any case, with the wind nudging us steadily off the land.

A couple of houses, an old ruin, and a small pier, and that’s the whole of Isle Martin accounted for. It’s a wonderfully peaceful anchorage, and it’s a shame we can’t stay the night, since a night here would be close to perfect.

The run back is lazy, the breeze comfortably behind us, and we slide past the shore…

…though the cruise ship now dominates the skyline, dwarfing the little town entirely and trailing the usual steady plume of generator exhaust, blowing away from us, fortunately.

We tie up again on the mooring buoy, where Heydays will sit for the next few weeks while we head south to renew acquaintance with houses, family, and friends.

As we have our dinner in the last of the evening sunshine, the cruise liner leaves taking its constant toing and froing tenders and exhaust smoke with it. We suppose that cruise ships are good for the gift shops, but probably less so for the eateries and the rest of the town….

Just a couple of cormorants and a gig to keep us company…

This is the last entry for a month or so, so I trust our reader can contain their excitement in the meantime.

Footnote:….solstice sunset over Loch Broom…

June 17, 2026

June 17… time for something other than the sitting-down version of “activity.”

Sailing, it has to be said, is a largely sedentary pursuit. There are bursts of real effort…fenders, lines, sails, as we leave or enter a harbour, and precious little in between. On a long passage, the most strenuous task of the day is often just nipping below to put the kettle on. Yes, a lumpy sea demands constant bracing, but nobody’s pretending that counts as cardio.

So we resolve to spend at least a day in Lochinver, with vague ambitions of a hill walk if the weather allows, and no great objection if it doesn’t.

Annoyingly, there’s a job up the mast that can’t be put off any longer. We’ve got a wireless wind instrument on the way out, and entirely in keeping with Heydays’ character, the original anemometer still up there alongside it, having served faithfully for as long as we’ve known her. Lately, though, it’s been telling us fibs…wind clearly on our left cheek, instrument insisting it’s coming from astern. A look aloft suggests it’s rotated on its spindle, very possibly the work of a passing bird with no respect for instrumentation.

We idly wondered yesterday afternoon whether now might be the moment to go up and sort it. Unhelpfully, the pontoon beside us is occupied by a couple of boats with young crews and weathered-looking skippers, exactly the audience nobody wants. Going up a mast is never dignified, and it always draws a crowd. We still carry the scar tissue from a sunny afternoon in Dartmouth, watched by several dozen ice-cream-licking spectators, all presumably hoping for a dropped spanner or an ungainly plunge. Not keen to repeat the performance, we fall back on the old principle that any properly seasoned sailor should be able to feel the wind and trim accordingly. Technology, we decide, is overrated.

With our pontoon neighbours gone and the weather looking kind, we drag ourselves up for a walk round the village and along the River Inver. The fish dock is heaving, a large trawler is landing a serious catch, and the harbourmaster tells us she belongs to the French supermarket chain Intermarché. The fish goes straight into sealed crates and onto lorries headed for France. Two big Spanish boats are expected on the same basis before long: trawling international waters, but landing in the UK because it’s cheaper to truck the catch to Europe afterwards than to sail it there.

Despite the very commercial nature of the fish dock, the loch itself is very pretty and with reminders of an older style of life still around…

James fails entirely to steer John and Yee Tak past the butcher’s window, where a large piece of venison has clearly been waiting for them all morning. What follows is several minutes (possibly hours) of earnest deliberation over what, exactly, one does with a haunch like that. The village itself is buzzing, full of campervans and motorbikes doing the North Coast 500 circuit, and it’s obviously a lifeline for a place this size.

The Inver is in full spate, and we follow it upstream past roaring waterfalls, a weir, and a string of rocky pools, some of them clearly man-made, presumably for the benefit of the salmon fishing rather than the salmon.

Eventually the path peels away from the river and we’re out into wild, empty hill country behind the village, nothing but deer fences for company.

…and a very brave little toad…

The loch above the village is calm and lovely in the early afternoon sun…

…and then we turn finally for home with a definite sense of having earned the venison waiting for 2 of us.

It’s a place that rewards you from both directions, land and sea, and we count ourselves lucky to have seen it from both. But tomorrow this should be back to a sailing blog about sailing…

June 16, 2026

June 16th…along the rugged coast…

The weather window looks promising, a few days of settled southerlies or south-westerlies across the Minch, which is about as good as it gets up here.

Kinlochbervie is a gem, but a small one. The hills are calling, and under other circumstances we’d answer, but the calendar has us in its unforgiving grip, and we decide to press on to Lochinver, a short hop really, from Ullapool, where Heydays will hopefully sit quietly at rest while we scoot south for July.

A wander round the village turns up some lovely beaches and two cafés, which, combined with the steady trickle of campervans, confirms this is firmly on the North Coast 500 circuit.

There’s also a sizeable trawler alongside, disgorging 1,700 crates of Ling and Monkfish with impressive efficiency. She came in around half six, swapped crews at some point, and was back out through the heads by noon, ruthlessly commercial, and slightly dispiriting for the smaller boats trying to scratch a living alongside her.

As she leaves, another comes in…

Yet the dock and its infrastructure tell a once, more optimistic story… ice plant, lock-up garages, decent facilities, all clearly intended to welcome boats of every size. We pass a pleasant few minutes with a local who’s heading out to lift his prawn and lobster pots further up the loch. There are, it seems, still gaps in the market.

The forecast for the Minch, meanwhile, proves to be, how to put this charitably, aspirational. The apps had promised a nice beam reach to Stoer Head on a decent south-easterly. What we get is glassy calm and the unmistakeable sound of diesel. Sorry, Joshua. The engine gets its moment.

In fairness, it’s hard to grumble. The calm gives us time to sit back and revel in this extraordinary coastline, ragged, ancient, barely populated, with beaches that would be heaving with sunloungers anywhere south of Inverness.

The guillemots have colonised the cliffs, and they seem to play chicken (guillemot??) with us as there are hundreds sitting communing in sociable rafts, leaving it until the last minute to flap away across the water or to dive down. We don’t seem to run any over, but we keep checking to see if we are leaving a trail of feathers behind us…

The mountains march away into the distance, and headlands come and go, some with lights and other with fanciful names …why are stacks always “Old men” of something. This one is the Old Man of Stoer…

The approach to Lochinver offers the same mild anxiety as Kinlochbervie…you aim at what looks like a solid wall of rock and trust that something will give. It does, the village opens up at the last moment, and with it a neat little dock for leisure boats, where we are soon tucked in just as the rian sweeps across….all glowered over by what we think is the very carbunkle-like Caisteal Liath mountain.

June 8, 2026

Monday 8th …back with an old friend

Revisiting places full of happy memories can sometimes be a bit of a fool’s errand. The food will be worse, the weather will be worse, and we will be older. Nevertheless, here we are in Stromness, nine years on, and we are delighted to report that the pessimists are, on this occasion, entirely wrong.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Two consecutive pre-dawn starts had left us in a condition politely described as knackered. Wick offered the prospect of rest and recuperation, and we embraced it wholeheartedly, until we discovered that Sunday public transport in this corner of Scotland amounts to one train and a rail replacement bus, both timed specifically to be of no use whatsoever. Old Pulteney distillery, which might otherwise have provided a perfectly reasonable programme for the day, was shut. Clearly, some activity was going to be required.

We compromised. We took a taxi.

Castle Sinclair Girnigoe turned out to be entirely worth the journey. Perched on sheer cliffs in a manner that would have any modern planning department reaching in fits, it is both magnificent and deeply alarming. Its history is, if anything, even more dramatic than its location. One clan chief, apparently not bothered by the norms of fatherhood, imprisoned his own son within its walls and sustained him exclusively on salt beef until the poor man died of thirst. We don’t think he would have done well in the current era of parenting.

Cromwell passed through briefly, and thereafter the castle got on with the business of falling into ruin.

The coast here is very craggy and we understand why you would build a castle here if you distrust some of the locals, even if it seems completely precarious…

The Noss Head lighthouse nearby has acquired a coffee caravan, which was doing brisk business. The baked goods on offer were extensive, and we concluded that the walk back to Wick would require more calories than strictly needed for nutrition. The cliff-top path being very boggy, we took the road instead, which proved longer but considerably drier, and passed through countryside that once formed part of the Coastal Command network, intercepting signals from German ships and occupied Norway and sending them south to Bletchley for decryption.

Back aboard Heydays, we turned our attention to Orkney. The weather forecast, as is normal round here, is everchanging making life or passages hard to plan. We wanted to reach some of the smaller islands missed on the previous visit, but after some debate, we settled on Stromness as the obvious first port of call, well-placed, well-sheltered, and an entirely acceptable place to be pinned down by the weather for several days should that prove necessary. Up here, this is what is known as a plan.

The Pentland Firth demanded its usual degree of respect. The tidal streams through here are not merely strong, they are the stuff that features in accident reports. The standing waves known as the Merry Men of Mey are named, one can only assume, by someone with a very odd sense of humour, as there is nothing remotely merry about them. Vessels considerably larger and more robust than Heydays have come to grief in them. The pilotage is precise, two miles east of Duncansby Head, one hour and fifteen minutes after high water Dover, at the exact moment of slack water as the tide turns north-west. We needed to be there at 0615. Wick is two and a half hours away under engine. The arithmetic is straightforward and deeply unwelcome: alarm at 0245, slip mooring at 0330.

The one concession the far north makes at this time of year is that darkness barely registers. We went to bed at eight o’clock in broad daylight, which is a peculiar experience, and lay there with the rain doing its best to keep us awake.

Sleep came, eventually, but was not entirely restful…

At 0245, the alarm achieved what rain, daylight, and general anxiety had failed to do and woke us up. We got ourselves into full wet weather gear and sufficient warm layers to stifle all mobility, and by 0330 were sliding quietly away from the mooring with enough light to steer by…

We have the lights of Noss Head and then Duncansby Head to guide us, and we slide past the now ghostly Castle Sinclair Girnigoe.

The only other signs of life at this god-forsaken hour are the ever present, very cute, but incredibly shy guillemots. They resolutely refuse to be photographed and swim away underwater with a technique that looks just like flying.

The rain eases, but the temperature stays firmly well in single figures as the headlands pass in silhouette. Hot coffee helps…

With absolutely no wind at all we use “the old iron tops’l”, as old sailors probably never said, and we get to the start of the Pentland Race exactly at slack water and to the minute of the pilot guide….smug or what…

…just a fishing boat rounding the head towards Scrabster…

As Duncansby Head and the iske of Stroma fall astern, and Muckle Skerry with its very lonely light slides past to starboard…

…we fix our eyes on South Ronaldsay and Swona. The westerly stream is now doing its best to suck us towards the race, and we are steering around 40 degrees east just to make good our course.

Gradually we draw a beam of Swona, and, now protected by South Ronaldsay, we are through the worst and still with no wind, motoring freely towards Scapa Flow.

We see it coming….a squall from dead ahead bringing winds on the nose, heavy rain, and very little visibility. Our plan is to head up Hoxa Sound and then across Scapa Flow, but a message on the radio adds to our joy as it warns of a big tanker leaving to transit down the Sound in the opposite direction.

We decide to use discretion (much underrated) and instead plot a passage to shimmy between the island of Hoy and the small islands of Switha, Flotta and Cava.

As the visibility improves slightly, we catch a glimpse of the tanker, thankfully to be nowhere near…

The change of course turns out to be delightful, as the weather changes as rapidly as it came, and we find ourselves in bright sun (albeit with wind on the nose….obviously).

The last few miles past Graemsay and in to Stromness are brilliant and there is a real sense of almost a homecoming.

The ferry runs in ahead of us …

and by the time we have tied up ourselves, it is already loading for the return trip.

We feel like we’ve done a day’s work already…it’s only 10.45am, but fried eggs and more coffee make up ….what? Breakfast? Brunch?…..before a really welcome snooze. It’s great to be back.

June 7, 2026

Saturday 6th June…another 5am alarm!

Even after one day, the early morning routine is established….get dressed by numbers, say a bleary good morning as brightly as we can to each other and get the kettle on. The forecast is for showers, a bit of a chill and Easterly F4….more getting togged up and more layers. Just as we are getting ready to slip the mooring, Billy and his son arrive back in harbour and they are really chipper having had a good haul of langoustines. We thank him for the crab, but as we leave the harbour he throws us a big bag with at least 60 or 70 langoustine tails. What a brilliant way to start the day and so we slide out into the new day with not just hot coffee, but a really wonderful warm feeling and broad smiles on our faces.

The easterly F4 does not materialise…in fact there is not enough wind to properly fill the sails. However, the previous night’s easterly has left a rather short swell over the beam and Heydays rolls slightly uncomfortably. We tighten the sails, not to drive us along, but just to dampen the rolling.

The coast is definitely becoming craggier and there are all sorts of cliffs and stacks rising out of a sea with breakers at their foot.

Off shore there is a huge windfarm and we seem to be sailing past it for hours…alternately it is in bright sunshine and at other times we see the rain squalls washing past…some of which get us as well.

Amid all the slop and tossing of a beam swell, some dolphins decide to keep us company for a while. Not as spectacular as Coleraine last September, but they always lift the spirits…

As we approach Wick, there are signs of civilisation appearing on the cliffs, but no sign of the promised fresh easterlies…

We call the Wick Harbourmaster and he is waiting on the pontoon to guide us in and to take lines…another great welcome and service which we have rarely (if ever) met ‘down south.

We lunch on crab linguine, langoustines and a bottle of white…cheers again Billy from Helmsdale…and promptly fall asleep….

We do a short shopping list and head off to the Coop for essentials…2 whites, 2 reds, one gin, one tonic and some spaghetti….its a tough life.

Wandering round town, we get a sense of real decay since even the last time we were here in 2017. There are just so many shops which are boarded up and even the Weatherspoons has gone. It was clearly once a very grand town with huge wealth built on the herring. One information board describes the heyday of the herring industry with a single day catch of over 100million herring and an army of over 3000 fearsome herring gutter women. With over 1000 boats out of Wick in the 1930s we see just a couple of dozen now. The information board seemed to blame the quotas introduced in the 60s, but the reality is that the herring were simply over-fished, and they killed the very thing which made them rich.

However, as we wander back towards the harbour we see some signs for the future…huge wind turbine blades on the dockside ready for transportation to a new wind farm just down the coast. The blades are huge…78.5 meters long according to a young dock steward, and 20 tons, and are carried vertically on specially designed transporter. Great, we think. Maybe there is hope and life for the future, only to be told that these blades have come from Germany, while others come from Mexico and the US. We are left angry and frustrated. Why are we not building them here? Why are we not giving some hope, jobs and prosperity to a town which clearly needs it?

OK OK, this is a sailing blog, but one of the best bits about sailing like this is that we get to visit places which are convenient harbours, but which are off the tourist trail. We get to see bits of our country which we would not otherwise have visited and to confront some difficult truths about post industrial, finance and service sector focused UK.

June 6, 2026

June 2nd to 5th…a new chapter in chilly climes…

We are back on Heydays having spent some time back home, renewing our acquaintances with grandchildren, gardens/allotments and general domestic stuff.

Chris is not with us for this leg so it’s just John, James and Yee Tak driving up to Inverness early on Tuesday morning. We take turns driving, 2 hours on and 2 hours off…a bit like being on watch for long sea passages. Breakfast in probably the best
motorway services in the country, at Gloucester Farm Shop, and apart from a few pottystops and hand-overs, we get to Heydays by early evening and it’s great to be back on board…and she smells good too!

We have a couple of day’s worth of jobs planned…including new valves for the toilet…who says sailing is all glamour.

Friday morning and a 5.30am alarm gets us up if not raring. We were woken at times in the night as the rigging was whistling and vibrating in the wind, and the rain lashed down with a fierce drumming on the roof…not conditions conducive to a good sleep. The
forecast is for westerly winds F4 to 6, but with showers for most of the day. The main
reason for relinquishing our pillows so early, is so that we can get the strong ebb current out under the bridge and through the Channory Narrows. We get fully togged up as not only are we expecting rain, but the wind is chilly too.

We called Helmsdale Harbourmaster yesterday to check that there would be space for us, only to be told that due to a winter of South Easterly storms, the harbour and the entrance is silted up and that it is effectively closed to leisure boats. We explain that as a bilge keeler with limited draft, we are used to the south coast mud and are happy to take the ground. After a conversation with his boss, the very helpful Billy said that he
was happy to take us and that if we call when we are close, he will guide us in.

It is brilliant to get the boat ready for the open sea…checking sails, ropes and finalising
the navigation for the day.

Finally…we slip our mooring and slide out into the bright Inverness morning…

With the fresh breeze fine over the port quarter, we opt just for a genoa. Over the years we have found that the old girl sails really well like this, and is easy to tack down wind. The added note here is that we don’t need to push on too rapidly as we can’t enter
Helmsdale until 2.30 at the earliest.

As Inverness falls astern into a brightening sky, we are grateful for our early morning coffee. This is June, but with lots of layers stuffing us up, it feels more like February.

We zig zag through the narrows and then we see them…our first dolphins of this leg. Sadly for us they are more interested in their own breakfast than playing or allowing their photo to be taken, but it is still lovely to see them…

We settle in to the usual pattern of a longish passage, the autohelm doing its job and us watching for the usual pot buoys. Of other ships we see nothing, just a small coaster pushing out eastwards.

The rain comes and goes and we are thankful for our wet weather gear, but when the sun deigns to make an appearance we are quite pathetically grateful…but it really lifts the spirits.

Lunch of hot soup and bread is a real treat…

…and soon we are contacting Billy the harbourmaster to guide us in across the new sandbanks. We line up the marks and then with a sharp turn into the harbour as instructed we are in and Billy is there to take our lines. 9 years ago we were the first yacht of the season to visit Helmsdale, this year we are also the first of the season to attempt the entrance. Just as we make fast our lines, the sky opens (again) and we retreat inside to dry off.

Billy has only been doing the job for a couple of months, as he used to be a regular fisherman. Now, with a couple of hip ops behind him, his son has the boat and Billy helps out from time to time, although he still has a small boat of his own which he uses occasionally. Mostly they catch crab, lobster and langoustines which they sell to local restaurants and hotels.

We opt for an afternoon nap and when we wake up, we find that Billy has left us a tub of crab meat. He is due to go out this evening with his son and so we say goodbye and just realise again how friendly and helpful the harbourmasters are up here.

Helmsdale has clearly seen better days, and the storms and silting of the harbour will do nothing to help. With a few forty winks under our eyelids, we head off for a wander round…

to the ‘famous’ La Mirage fish and chip restaurant. It is renowned for its huge portions, its glitzy pink décor and its famous attraction for Barbara Cartland who was apparently a frequent visitor. Under new owners the portions are less enormous, but we still can’t finish everything. We head back to Heydays considerably heavier than when we left and prepare ourselves for another early tide to catch.

May 10, 2026

May 9th… Tobermory to Loch a Choir

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.

May 8, 2026

May 7th…a glorious sail up the Sound of Mull

Pre-departure planning the previous evening presented a bit of a navigational debate. The Admiralty Tidal Atlas and our two trusted apps, Navionics and Savvy Navvy, appeared to have attended entirely different courses on hydrography. The apps suggested a relaxed, “leave whenever you fancy” approach, while the Admiralty, in its authoritative manner, was insisting on considerably stronger tidal streams and a correspondingly later departure.

A night’s sleep resolved nothing, but the forecast offered a helpful nudge… headwinds were due to arrive late afternoon, which concentrated the mind. Departure was set for around noon, a decision that felt decisive.

Easedale came to life in the morning sunshine as we attended to brunch, and set about preparing ourselves and Heydays (The Old Girl), for what promised to be an “exciting” trip in F3 to 5 conditions.

Passing through the narrow entrance, we noted with that we were the last vessel to depart, leaving behind a now-deserted anchorage….

Years of sailing Heydays have taught us that she respoinds reall well to conservative sail management. A reef or two in the main, a few rolls in the genoa, and she is transformed. Speed is maintained, whilst comfort, controllability, and the boat’s general wellbeing improve considerably. This approach was validated repeatedly throughout the morning, as the surrounding hills and mountains generated the occasional sharp squall.

With approximately a knot of tide in opposition, Heydays was still getting a respectable 5 knots over the ground, a performance we attribute with considerable satisfaction to her Coppercoated bottom, which continues to prove its worth.

The scenery was extraordinary. Ben Nevis and the Cairngorms loomed over the horizon with a magnificence which was quite inspiring.

Running downwind with a building sea demanded a lot of concentration at the helm. Occasionally, and with exhilaration,Heydays approached 10 knots, surfing down the faces of waves as we charged up the Firth of Lorne. Crinan and Oban slipped astern, and we looked forward to a late lunch in the relative civility of the Sound of Mull as we passed Blacks Memorial Tower and later, the imposing Dewart Castle…

These waters are altogether much busier than the quieter passages around Jura and Islay. CalMac ferries, coasters, and workboats went purposefully about their business in all directions.

The gusts strengthened as the afternoon progressed, but with the tide now generously in our favour, Heydays was eating up the remaining miles to Tobermory with considerable enthusiasm.

A passing CalMac ferry acquired a Coastguard helicopter, which shadowed it for the better part of half an hour. Clearly a training exercise, the aircraft hovered mere feet above the ferry’s stern, producing a spectacular downdraft.

Tobermory materialised around the headland right on cue, and with gusts still making their presence felt, we dropped the sails and aimed hopefully for a walk-ashore pontoon berth rather than the more athletic alternative of a mooring buoy. Luck was with us and we secured what appeared to be the final available berth. With Heydays safely tucked in and a rain shower providing the atmosphere, gin and tonics were poured, and a brilliant passage was complete.

Postscript: The Admiralty Tidal Atlas, it transpired, had a rather firmer grasp on reality than our apps. Some institutions, it seems, have earned their authority…

Final thought…for those of you kind enoughh to actually read these ramblings, I write most days if there is signal and would love to hear from you if you wish to comment or indeed subscribe.

April 28, 2026

Getting the old girl ready…

The broad plan for ’26, is to leave Coleraine and head up to Islay…with its 9 distilleries, and then work our way up to the Outer Hebrides, before we round Cape Wrath and then to Orkney. Time and weather will dictate any further progress north, before we head south once more down the East coast of Scotland. No decisions yet about next winter, but Coleraine has been good to us (and our pockets)…so who knows…?

John and James are coming out early to do the usual pre-season checks and prep. We’ve booked in to have Heydays lifted out…we need to sort some electrical stuff on the mast, insurance has asked for a full survey, and we need to pay attention to her bottom.

But first things first….. Heydays has done really well over winter, snuggly up the River Bann, and we renew our acquaintance with her…and with The Queen’s Arms, where Terry remembers us and welcomes us like locals.

Out of the water the old girls looks good and with a fine bottom…

…so we have a wee celebratory dram as the sun sets over the river.

We gradually tick off the list of jobs, re-wiring on the mast, new hatches…on an old boat, the routine list of repair and maintenance gets longer by the year. By Friday, we’re up to date, apart from making her smell nice and looking less like a den for a couple of old salts, and more like something Yee Tak and Chris would actually want to live in.

We wander in to town to be greeted by Union Flags and the Ulster flag from almost every lamppost, lots of people milling about and police closing roads. It turns out that there is a big event for the marching bands (mostly drum and fife). There must be well over 30 which are still marching over 2 hours after the start…and long after we’ve retired back to our boat.

All very militaristic, some with innocuous names like the Ballymena Drum and Fife Band, but others with clearer intentions….and most with union flags and assorted orange colours.

We refrain from asking if there are any pictures of the pope!

Our feeling as observers was one of watching long memories and defiance.

Saturday, and the river is buzzing with huge numbers from the rowing club on the opposite bank…

…whilst on Sunday, nothing much happens until 1pm (presumably apart from the church goers at the very many assorted non-conformist churches and chapels).

We decide that we too should have a day of rest, and take the train to Derry Londonderry. Its quite a spectacular ride beside rocky pools and glorious sandy beaches, before we turn into Loch Foyle and the city itself.

This is not the place for a history lesson, but the walls are amazing, and steeped in sectarian memories, both from the siege by catholic James 2nd, and its eventual relief by the protestant Wiiliam of Orange, right up to the watchtowers and dividers throughout the 70s 80s and 90s. Nowhere is free from reminders from both sides…

…and down on the Creggan and Bogside…

But outside these areas, there is a real sign that life is normal once more, and that there is a desire to look forward…

Monday is a slightly apprehensive day with a surveyor due…

He gives her a clean bill of health appart from some corrosion on one of the seacocks in the engine room. This is less good news as failure of these can lead to seawater being more on the inside than the outside of the boat…not normally ideal. There are some brilliantly helpful people around and when gentle persuasion with a big spanner doesn’t work to remnove the old one, a neighbour lends us his angle grinder.

We’ve rented a car for the next two days, partly to fetch Yee Tak and Chris from the airport and partly to let John and Chris do some sightseeing…James and Yee Tak have driven this recently. This turns out to be a brilliant move as we tour the chandlers for essential bits. A special mention has to go to Down Marine just outside Belfast. This is a real Alladin’s cave of boat bits and we get just about everything needed to get the job done.

With our other halves collected, John and Chris trundle off round the Titanic museum (one of the best museums we have ever been to) and the others find a bar… The scenic route along the coast road from Belfast is stunning, and hugs the cliffs and rocky beaches all the way past Ratlin Island, Ballycastle, The Giants Causeway …and Bushmills Distillery. Dinner in Rory McIlroy’s home town of Port Rush sets us up nicely for what will be a hard days work tomorrow.

June 14, 2025

Saturday 14 June …westwards but slowly…

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.