Lochboisdale to Mallaig

After an exciting weekend when we visited the Lochboisdale Summer Market grand opening event. It felt like the whole of the village was there, having a chat and catching up on life in general. Two empty shop units were in use, with the local smokehouse selling their very expensive but very very good smoked flaked salmon. The much vaunted Hebridean bakery fare was a bit disappointing (the bread was, but the oatcakes were superb). What were the special opening activities we hear you cry!? Well, face painting for children and someone cooking burgers or sausage slices then sticking them in a bun. Pretty wild stuff.

After a chat to Donald the harbourmaster, giving him "TGT" (remember, The Guided Tour") and paying a very reasonable sum for our stay we prepared for a following morning departure.

Of course, it had to be drizzly as we left so again, no Lochboisdale pictures for you. The route is pretty simple, head between Skye and Canna then Rum and Eigg then turn up a little for Mallaig:

There are several areas of shallow water that can cause turbulence but the SW'ly wind was only a force 4 so we didn't need to route around them. Hence the straight line courses! The weather was wonderfully grey, showers skittering across the water and the occasional peek of sun. Even had mist and cloud obscuring the higher bits of the islands. Very few pleasure boats were out and about, just a few fishermen. We inherited some hitchhikers though:

And they brought their friends along too:

We ended up with 11 of them freeloading. Patrick was not amused and managed to scare them off by looking savage (or as savage as a stuffed penguin with a bright yellow beak and silly grin can manage). When his antics failed, the horn worked. Much better were the two dolphins that came to play in the bow wave so we had to head outside and give them encouraging noises.

The views of the many islands were not great, at one stage as a big shower headed over we even fired up the radar. Here is a typical example, Eigg and Rum:

Luckily, a little sun came out as we approached Mallaig. Entering the harbour we found that the promised hammerhead berth looked full - a catamaran on one and a reserve  lifeboat on the other:

Hum. The fingers berths are pretty wide luckily, even if not quite long enough for us. However, we managed to tuck onto the same hammerhead as the cat, hanging over a little but OK. The crew was upset, someone had wiped out the services pylon and so there was no nice 32 amp power connection - only a little 16 amp job from a nearby berth. Just got to be careful when cooking or washing as usual.

We had a chat with some folks on a Contessa 32 yacht that we had met briefly in Loch Aline. After giving them TGT as well, we fear that they found the interior of their Contessa a little cramped that evening.

The trip was around 50 nautical miles and took about 6 hours at a gentle 1480 rpm. Of course, we had the usual wing engine exercise and a good wide open throttle burn for the big Lugger before we arrived. No exciting maintenance news - the stern gland ran nice and cool again and nothing disastrous to report, luckily.