Monday 9th June. A 9 hour beat down the Sounds of Luing and Jura were not too much fun when you have 20 – 25 knots coming at you. At least it was all on one tack so we made good progress but the sea was rough. Top speed of the day was 13knts SOG with 6 knts of tide behind us. Good job we weren't going the other way. I must say whoever worked out the tides did a great job – oh that's right, it was me.
Plan A was to make it down to Port Ellen on Islay but by 5 O'Clock we were knackered so on to Plan B and into Craighouse on Jura. The entrance was easy to find and plenty of mooring buoys free. The pilot book didnt score it well for anchoring saying it was full of kelp. It was very shallow (circa 3 -4 metres deep) but you could see big patches of sand on the bottom so maybe not as bad as the book says to drop the hook. During our sail down we had overtaken a slightly smaller yacht and around an hour after we got in, Namaste turned up with Bo of RoBo fame on board. We watched them try to pick up a buoy a couple (?) of times then spend 2 hours on the foredeck sorting out ropes.
The wind kept up at 20Knts + until late in the evening so we declined to go ashore as the chop was excessive. Tom and Andy had left us in Dunstaffnage and we had been joined by Murray and Alan for the next 10 days.
Rob had completed the drinks cabinet late on Saturday and had christened it with us on Sunday afternoon so we gave it a thorough test drive.
Tuesday morning and the wind had swung more north westerly but was still blowing 20+. At least the direction was good to get us round the bottom of Islay before the last hour of beating up into Port Ellen. We picked up a mooring buoy in 25knts of wind rather than try and get on the pontoons given the lack of space there. All of mooring buoys were empty so we had our choice and picked one up at the third attempt using the new “buoy picker up thingy” that Pam had bought in Dunny (it was blowing hard!). it looks a pretty nifty bit of kit. Top speed today was 8knts but we did have two reefs in.
As I'm writing this there is still 25knts blowing and the dinghy is firmly tied up waiting for it to subside so we can get ashore. The sun however is shining and and the Duogen going round and round at warp speed. The forecast is for high pressure to build to the west of Ireland and for strong northerly winds to develop. This will certainly be good to get us down to Ireland later in the week. We'll decide how long to stop here when we get chance to get ashore.
I guess that to get the mortgage loans from creditors you should present a firm motivation. However, once I've received a small business loan, because I wanted to buy a house.
Posted by: PansyJacobson | 02/04/2010 at 06:27 AM
I just linked this article on my facebook account. It’s an interesting read for everyone.
Posted by: Finn | 16/09/2010 at 06:01 PM