20th June Loch Tarbert to Puilladobhrain

Something I forgot to add on the last post was we hit a bit of a milestone on Wednesday. We went over 1000 N miles, I was going to say sailed, but as an awful lot of our travels have been under motor due to lack of wind or wind coming from where we were heading. We set off from what seemed the incredibly remote Loch Tarbert. I guess it was. There was absolutely no mobile coverage on EE, 3 Mobile or Vodaphone, although I did briefly manage to get signal and sent a WhatsApp message home after our dinghy ride up to the top of inner Loch Tarbert and walking up a hill. The trip started in drizzle and mist so there wasn’t a lot of pictures. We traveled North along the West coast of Jura. As we reached the top of the Island the charts showed “The Great Race” opposite the entrance to the infamous Gulf of Corryvrekan. For those unaware the Corryvrekan has incredibly dangerous tides running through it with whirl pools that can destroy boats. Being about 2 miles off we had assumed we would be safe. The tide was flowing West so we wouldn’t get dragged in. Fortunately there was virtually no wind and a calm sea. As we reached The Great Race the water was swirling in vast glassy pools surrounded by very choppy water. I had the Autopilot on set to follow a track to a waypoint. The boat crabbed up the line fighting a 3kt tide trying to push the boat sideways. The race is purely caused by water flowing in different directions and meeting. The seabed was in excess of 180m below the surface. Once through it we continued on between the rocks and Islands. One solitary dolphin made an appearance and a Puffin took a quick dive under water before I got a chance to get a picture. We continued on past the Island of Seil and turned into what the famous yachting writer Eric Hiscock once described as the most perfect anchorage in the world, Puilladobhrain. I’m not sure I would go that far, but we entered a fairly crowded well sheltered anchorage and found space for the two boats and the anchors dug in on the first attempt. I wouldn’t want to be there on a sunny August weekend. We went ashore and found the pub half a mile away over the hill. I’m still having problems uploading pictures to the website, so just a few for now.
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