"Exciting" Sailing

From Ininnmore we expected a long haul up the Sound of Mull, with the tide mostly against us. We’d been warned the Sound was a slog.
We stopped off for elevenses in Lochaline which was friendly, with a great shop & cafe. Then a favourable wind got us sailing in clear skies, with a pretty coastline slipping steadily by.

Later, before the narrows, the wind was up to force 5 and we were sometimes surfing the following waves, surrounded by white horses. At the narrows the wind crept up a notch: Anne had just announced 13.4kph from the GPS (against the tide) - our normal paddling speed is 7, when the situation turned from exhilarating to alarming. I needed to pull in our simple spinnaker, so that Anne could turn round & furl it, but was fighting with all my strength, using paddle & rudder to keep the kayak in line with the steepening following sea. Eventually there was brief a moment when I could tug back the sail, but it was determined to billow out sideways & pull us over. Anne had to turn right round to fasten the sail, causing her spray deck to come loose. [we sit in sea-socks as well, which prevent the whole kayak flooding in a capsize].
The strengthening wind had got us into a situation we couldn’t easily back out of.
There were several yachts about, so help was at hand if we had gone in. We’re working on a quick-release so that we can easily lower the sail & stuff it in a bag, should we be in this situation again.
When we’d got it furled, once we had dodged a seaplane & a cruise ship, we soon reached delightful Tobermory, for more shopping & snacks.

After refreshments, the wind had reduced enough for us to cross to Auliston Point so we’re here camped on stones at a pretty, but midgy spot near Oronsay. It’s nearly June & already it never gets fully dark: the dawn chorus was at 3:30, but a confused cuckoo was calling at 1am, when I was still buzzing with excitement.

Our IT equipped kayak

Tom has “retired” but I need to continue running my business while we’re away. My clients know travelling and so will only be accessing emails intermittently, but only a select few know exactly HOW I’m travelling. I suspect P&G’s purchasing department would be rather surprised if they could see where my email about our contract was being sent from!

IT and mobile broadband make this so much more feasible .... Even last year it would have been more difficult. For geeks, I use an small Acer Aspire One, with 16GB solid state memory and an extra large battery. I have a copy of all my work files with me on an 8GB USB key. Mobile broadband is via a vodaphone pay as you go dongle. This has much better coverage in NW Scotland than some of the other networks. While in the kayak, the kit lives in a A4 sized lomo waterproof bag with a sachet of desiccant, enveloped in a steadily increasing layer of clothes as padding.

If blog posts suddenly stop, you’ll know this was inadequate protection!

Lismore

We spend the day in our friends Hugh and Sara's delightful cabin on the island of Lismore, looking up Loch Linne towards Ben Nevis.

We take the opportunity to sort things out and do a few repairs.

My car and house keys turn up. How the normal world fades away when you're on a journey......

Dorus Mor

North of Crinan is the famous tide race, the "Dorus Mor" (big door) The night before I'd decided to postpone because of forecast force 5-6 westerlies (and worse, against the tide so it could create a dangerous chop). But I got to chat with a coastguard who said the wind probably wouldn't arrive & suggested we go & look - half an hour before the predicted turn of tide, as it can often be earlier than the official time. He advised us to go north to get there and to expect the unexpected! We got through fine exactly on the turn of the tide, but after rounding Craignish Point did find ourselves facing an unexpected curent - too strong to paddle into. I needed to steer between this and another than would carry us to Corryvreckan that would be fully wild by now, with spring tide and the forecast westerly wind against it. At intervals Anne pointed out that we were going backwards!

It turned into a beautiful, fresh sunny day with an occasional squall. Later, a tail wind for sailing helped us past the Clachan Bridge, over the narrow channel from the mainland to Seil, dubbed "The Bridge over the Atlantic".

We camped by the sea... a little closer than we'd planned!

A night of luxury

All this really does fit in the kayak -with room for us too.

With everything pretty wet, we decided to treat ourselves to a night in the posh Crinan Hotel.

Landed at a slip just below it & checked in with our designer luggage, as shown - reception didn't raise an eyebrow.

Made extensive use of their antiquated boiler-room to dry our gear-
and the food was marvellous!

Sailing

Tom discovered that he's really a sailor

We rig the sail and travel 35 miles from Gigha to an iris strewn bay just south of Carsaig

Blustery N Gigha

We’ve had a superb & fortunate start, in brilliant sunshine yesterday, although we’re now a bit storm-bound:

Broke the drive up to Kintyre at the original Loch Fyne restaurant, before getting to Point Sands campsite, Taylinoan -an ideal start a trip like this: friendly, easy-going & right on the beach.

After a full, but relaxed morning of assembling & packing the kayak, we parked the car for the month & paddled off the beach, accompanied to start with by Leslie, another Kayaker we met at the campsite. She claimed to be a novice, but admitted to owning 4 kayaks!.

Had an easy paddle across to Gigha in bright sun, with the Paps of Jura beckoning us. Ah, life becomes simpler!

There were majestic gannets & cooing eider duck off the N end of Gigha.Found an isolated sandy beach with just enough room to camp

The evening got still enough for midges, but the forecast wind came in the night.

This morning’s shipping forecast SE 5-7 & watching rough seas from our sheltered spot persuaded us to stay put & walk to Gigha’s famous gardens & bar.. & seek coverage to send this blog & get more weather forecasts.

Where are we going?

We plan to start at the southern edge of this map, hopefully going first to the small island of Gigha, then we'll head north. We quite deliberately haven't set ourselves a target, because we want to be free to respond to the weather, to explore interesting opportunities that arise and see what happens..... Maybe we'll get to Cape Wrath (Scotland's far north west corner) , maybe we'll struggle to get off the first beach!

Click on the map to see a larger version

Midi Basha

There's one disadvantage about scotland though... Rain and midges. We sewed this basha, which is held up with a split paddle and has advanced midge protection..... you'll see more no doubt in later postings ! The idea is to get out of wind & rain while cooking/ eating / drinking and still admiring the view. Here Anne is testing it in the garden in Cambridge ....

Adapting the Kayak

We've realised that its going to be a tight squeeze to fit our growing mound of kit into the kayak (These are all the things we "need" to keep us comfortable, safe, entertained .. and for me to continue to run my business while we're away)

We decided that we needed to add various straps to help us pack things in efficiently. Tom had the idea of including a mesh "parcel shelf" velcroed to the frame in front of his knees.

To test these, we assembled the frame of our kayak* in the garden, without its skin . Here you see me testing the fit.

*The kayak is a Feathercraft, http://www.feathercraft.com/kayaks/traditional/k2/index.php This is a lovely bit of engineering, based loosely on an Inuit kayak, consisting of an aluminium and plastic frame, inside a polyuruthane/nylon skin. The great advantage is thats is a very seaworthy kayak, but can be folded up into two (large) bags and put in a car, train, bus, plane etc..