Tobermory to Oban (thanks to Bertha)

Our plan was to head up to Mallaig and then Skye but that got changed as we looked at the long term weather forecast. The remnants of tropical storm Bertha were going to upset the weekend and the early part of next week. In fact the forecast was pretty grim (40 knot plus wind gusts, Force 7-8 promised) from Saturday until the following Thursday with some nice rain to accompany it. So, we pondered being in Mallaig sheltering from the weather for nearly a week. Nice place (see our earlier “by car” post) but not for a week. You could get stir crazy. We also contemplated the timing of our trip south which only had one fixed point – Bangor by September 12^th to meet John (the Knees / seat) and Tina also to attend the Belfast BBC Prom in the Park.

So, the decision was to head back to Oban (almost a metropolis!) and hide up there during the grim weather. Then we will potter south stopping in all the places and anchorages we haven’t seen yet like Jura and the northern coast of N Ireland. Based on that, think we will be back up here next summer to go further north…. Could be a while before we hit the Baltic at this rate but we want to explore Scotland properly first.

Of course, we needed to depart at stupid o’clock to take the tide with us down the sound of Mull. More 4:30am alarm clock nonsense. Luckily it is just light enough to see at that crazy time. We headed off with a nicely freshening wind and no other traffic (not a huge surprise of course). No pictures either as it was grey, windy, spitting with rain and the scenery was a reversal of the trip up here a few days ago. We even had the Calmac ferry Clansman pass us heading for Tiree and making a huge wash again.

As we hit 5:15am the official sunrise time, the grey gloom got a little less grey but it was hard to get excited about the change in shade. Still, it was very atmospheric and a reminder of how bleak this area must be in mid-winter storms and why we will overwinter further south once more:

We gave the little wing engine some exercise, the big Lugger engine a good long wide open throttle run and again struggled to get the folks in Dunstaffange to talk to us. The office really doesn’t open at 8:30 as advertised. Once it did, we were given a nice hammerhead berth – of course as we approached it the wind picked up, gusting to 38knots and the rain really started. It was also directly into the face of the poor captain on the flybridge who had to look roughly in the direction of travel. The crew could shelter a bit until the act of tying up was needed. Berthing duly completed, the rain stopped, perfectly on cue. How does it do that? Any answers or hints on how to modify such bad behaviour by the weather would be happily received.

Breakfast was needed – all that before 9:15am was most certainly not a normal start to a retired person’s day.