Lochaline to, not as planned, Stornoway

The best laid plans and all that. We'd plotted a slow trundle up the Outer Hebrides chain to enjoy the promised lovely weather over four days, with a couple of nice anchorages on the way to Stornoway. Everything was fine until the evening before our planned departure. We met a lady who told us that Hebcelt was on in Stornoway and they were heading up to it by yacht. Oh dear. A big Celtic festival and the harbour was going to be packed. We checked and it was going to start the day before our planned arrival. Fat chance of getting into one of our favourite places then.

A quick re-plan made us decide to just head straight to Stornoway instead. That gave us two days before the festival and the chance of getting a spot rather than anchoring off which is less than ideal in the harbour there. You can imagine what the tides dictated. Yes, the optimum departure would be around 1am... We decided to be a little less than optimal but to take as much advantage of the north going tide as possible, so we left at 2:45am. It didn't feel like a lie-in! A busy FLIR camera helped us out of the quiet harbour and into the pretty calm sea. The office view:

Being so far north meant that things got light pretty early on, around 3:30am which was nice as there were several pot markers to avoid. However, it was calm, tranquil and with the promise of good weather for a few days we were as happy as you can be after getting up that early. This is how the early morning light appeared:

and we were then treated to a stunningly beautiful sunrise which the phone camera didn't really do a good job of capturing. The captain was too lazy to dig out the proper camera, sorry:

The sun made an appearance and all was good. One course alteration was needed for an old fishing vessel that was working as a guard ship:

No idea what it was guarding out there at all. We had a most annoying hitch-hiker:

who refused to budge. The crew tried scaring it with the horn only to discover that our very very loud air horn had developed a sore throat.  Something to look at. Passing the Shiants, the interesting seabird quota (gulls do not fall into that category) racked up a lot. Plenty of puffins too. We also witnessed the minor miracle of the new CalMac ferry the Glen Sannox passing us on the way to Stornoway. This is the one that was "rather" late in delivery and a teeny bit over budget. The navigation system treated us to a closer picture than we could get from the pilothouse windows:

It has been called in to replace an old ferry that had technical issues and it was doing a strange "round robin" route to cater for North Uist and Harris / Lewis. We do feel for the islanders. 

The sun removed the remaining clouds and a beautiful run up to Stornoway ensued. We had to slow down a little to let the Loch Seaforth ferry go into the port first, we gave the wing engine a run and the main a good burn to clean up the piston rings and exhaust. We don't look at the fuel consumption gauge when doing that.  We like the just under 10 litres per hour for around 6.4 knots figure better. 30 odd litres for 8.5 knots isn't as nice.

The harbour folks were as well organised as usual, they called us asking if we wanted a berth, if we would be leaving the boat unattended and allocated us a lovely spot right alongside the lifeboat. Happy folks. Unfortunately, our liner curse was still active. This rather scruffy looking thing, the Corinthian,  was berthed in the commercial harbour:

Not quite Hebridean Princess standard we fear (probably way way cheaper though)  The hull seriously needs a repaint, the weed growing along the waterline was epic and the rust streaks on the superstructure added to the rather run down impression. A 1990 build she looked her age.

We had the usual "Stornoway greeting" - one of the harbour staff came down to the pontoon to help with lines and give us the info pack and registration form.  All rather nice really.

Our route up the island chain shows a couple of wriggles - those were to avoid commercial ships / the guard vessel:

The route is 72 nautical miles out to sea plus the wombling around in and out of the harbour areas. It took around 10.5 hours. So, we arrived in plenty of time to enjoy a late lunch, showers and then wander into the town briefly enjoying the sun and warmth. Almost a perfect trip in glorious weather and calm seas. The stabilisers were centered until we hit the wash from the ferry going into Stornoway and there were no complaints from the crew - that gives you an idea of how calm things were.

Maintenance news:

The dead microwave thing is a real nuisance. On longer trips we usually microwave something that had been batch cooked and kept in the freezers for dinner. As the built in microwave is a funny size (not the standard kitchen cabinet dimensions, that would be too easy) we decided to get a cheapo free standing one to use until the winter. Then we can struggle the dead one out, measure up and figure out what will fit. It was hard to find something suitable back in 2018. So a wander into the Euronics store that is handily on the harbourside, a chat to the nice ladies running it and a suitable free standing one was procured. It took it's place on the countertop. Not ideal but better than nothing.

The horn that has gone a bit husky - after the early morning wake up, that has to wait for another day.

Tobermory to Lochboisdale, then "doing South Uist"

The rain was going to ease up, but it was replaced by some fog banks instead. The weather just kept on giving somehow. Still, as we'd kind of "Tobermoried" all that we wanted to, the decision was to head across to South Uist. Tides dictated an early (for us) start just after 7am. Getting out from Tobermory, despite the hour we had a huge audience of yotties who wanted to see how the Nordhavn would wriggle out of the place. We were kind and waved at several of them, just to make a point....

Things started very calm indeed - see the true wind speed:

You can also see the edge of the radar picture which is a hint that there was poor visibility too. It opened up a bit for a misty pic of the little lighthouse just to the west of Tobermory:

and then kept closing down again. Not a huge problem, we have a couple of very capable radar scanners to use. The smaller (they are both open scanner devices) is a digital one that offers all sorts of sexy signal processing to improve the image and bin stuff coming back from waves, birds etc. The bigger one is old school magnetron based and has a way better range and definition between targets at very close quarters thanks to the size of the scanner. With either of them running, we are pretty happy that we will see anything else that is out there.

As we passed the (in)famous Ardnamurchan Point, so the depth reading took a holiday. The three dashes are not that helpful:

This is why, it struggled as the depth was over 200 metres:

You can see that we were not that far away from land either! It decided to work again as soon as we got into the comparatively shallow 180 metre area. It is kind of important to know how much water is under the keel....

Here is the route, tracking across the Sea of the Hebrides to the Outer Hebridean island of South Uist:

It took around 8.5 hours and as you are fully exposed to the Atlantic Ocean, there was some nice 2 meter swell on our beam that kept the stabilisers busy and upset the crew enough to need to take some Kwells tablets. No nice pictures from the run over as it was foggy / misty and even when clear, just grey. As we got further out there were a few bigger waves that the freshening wind encouraged but nothing dramatic.

Approaching Lochboisdale entrance, we were being raced by a rather nice Halberg-Rassy yacht that was alongside us in Tobermory. We are not built to race anything bar maybe a pedalo. However, they had to heave to (turn into the wind) to drop their sails and that let us approach the loch first. Happily, the sun came out a bit and the mist cleared so we could see the shore:

although this picture fails to show the lovely light and shade that the sun was picking out on the hill. We gave the harbour a call on the radio to check on where to berth. No reply. Tried the mobile phone number - same outcome. The place has to be manned when one of the CalMac ferries is moving (they need to put on the red "do not" lights but around that the hours are very variable). Proper Outer Hebridean island stuff. Lovely.

We spotted a nice alongside berth, one that we'd used before and settled in just before all the fish farm boats returned from their working day. Maybe we'd stolen one they wanted? No idea. When the assistant harbour guy arrived he was happy for us to stay put. All so wonderfully relaxed. A long chat ensued about the challenges of island life, how the flights to Glasgow had been cancelled for the past 4 days due to poor visibility and how his pregnant wife had to go all the way to Stornoway for a scan as the Uists / Benbecula don't have good enough kit. The NHS pay for the ferry fare over to Harris / Lewis for him and give something towards the fuel costs. Only when they did the scan, the baby was in a poor position to check everything and despite her best efforts, it would not move position quickly enough. The person doing the scan refused to wait, said he'd reached his contracted 12 hours that week so they would have to rebook and return another time.

Bear in mind that the trip (with the ferry) takes 4.5 hours each way. The joys of island living indeed. However, this is a stunningly beautiful island to live on.

What to do in Lochboisdale on a misty day? Well, you walk around to the local community cafe place. The ex ferry Hebridean Princess was on the pier, our liner curse continued. You can see how misty it was:

Luckily the liner folks had been whisked away by bus somewhere so we found space in the little cafe. The building it lives in is, to be blunt, ugly:

at the end of a row of equally ugly units. Hence, you walk in expecting little despite the three Google 5 star reviews. There are only three reviews, probably from family of the volunteers who run it or the volunteers themselves? No matter, they were accurate. It is run as a community place offering mental health support too, something much needed in the islands. Here is a sample of their specials to go with toasties, quiches, excellent home made cake etc:

The volunteer staff and cook were lovely ladies. We were served by a Volvo dealer trained and qualified car technician, another lady who spins wool and makes soaps and the cook was a lifeguard. They had some amazing back-stories, tasty food and such a friendly place. We had to visit twice. We hope it succeeds. 

These two rather hard as nails looking ex RNLI lifeboats were rafted in the harbour:

Now both owned privately by the same man who was interested in our not quite as hard as nails Nordhavn:

We chatted, gave a tour of the Nordhavn and were then treated to a good look around one of the retired Trent class lifeboats. They've been kept exactly as they were when in service- the owner and his partner just sleep on the floor if they spend time away in them. Karen, the partner, was keener on spending overnight time on board the Nordhavn for some strange reason.

Once the sun came out (it was windy too), we exhumed the Brompton bikes and did the trip down towards Eriskay. The Main (A classified) road through the spine of the island is, naturally, single track with passing places. We needed those to let the odd car / campervan heading to the ferry that runs from Eriskay to Barra go past us. The views across to Eriskay and Barra once you get to the coast are just beautiful. The little camera in the phone doesn't do it justice but here are the feeble attempts anyway:

We had a break in the Kilbride cafe at the campsite. We sat outside, enjoying the sun for a change, chatting to an interesting father and son combo - the son being over from Sydney Australia. You do have some odd and most interesting and educational short encounters whilst travelling around. This was one. The folks in the community cafe was another. 

Whilst we had coffee, the Bromptons had a snooze in the sun:

in an almost synchronised and balletic way. They quite enjoyed the scenery too:

You can easily tell the local folks versus the tourists on the roads. The locals are nice to bikes and pedestrians, they give you space even when walking on a pavement. They are courteous in passing places and always wave thank you if you wait for them on the single track roads. The visitors are another game entirely. Some really ought to just go home if they are in such a rush. Wrong place to be, it is all so laid back here.

Maintenance News:

We had a real first world crisis. The microwave combi oven thing went pop, or at least the microwave bit did. It made an odd noise, so the crew reported, but then happily spun some broccoli around and counted the time down. Only it didn't cook it. Sure enough, the microwave part has failed. It is an 8 year old Miele device and does get lots of use but still irritating. Getting a new built in one with the right dimensions in the Outer Hebrides? Forget it.  Getting a little free standing one to use before we replace the dead one - tricky, that will have to wait until we get to a metropolis, like Stornoway.