.jpg)
8th Jul 2007
Loch Aline, United Kingdom - Onward and Upward...
Well, we had a lovely night at our anchorage in Shuna. We walked Scamp and then played around in the bay (in the dingy) with two resident seals. Great fun! Each time we moved towards them they would dive, only to re-surface where we'd just come from. Very inquisitive and cheeky chaps! We returned to Tiger where Conny continued to watch them on and off through the night. After our return to the boat they later came out on to some rocks in the bay to spend the night.
The next morning we prepared for another tense passage. This one by the name of 'Cuan Sound', a short cut avoiding the 'Sound of Luing' but one with it's own list of casualties (as we later learnt from a nearby resident). Again the close proximity to spring tides amplified the dangers and get it wrong, and we'd be heading against an 8 knot flow and literally 'uphill' water (in full flow a form of rapids develop which have a 2 or 3 foot drop off) . I double checked the times and off we went. It soon became a fuss about nothing and apart from some turbulence at the beginning, we chugged through admiring the scenery.
On we went to our next anchorage at a Puilldobhrain, a very popular place 10 or so miles south of Oban. Bjorn (the Danish guy we met on east coast in 'Chili') had phoned us a couple of days earlier and at that time had only been 30 odd miles north of us. We'd made some outline plans to meet up here with Bjorn at this anchorage but with quite loose timescales. Imagine our surprise then on seeing Chili already at anchor in the bay. Out came the foghorn and we gave 3 long blasts to announce our arrival. How embarrassing! As our view of the bay opened up, we found ourselves being looked at by the occupants of practically every boat! Apart from Bjorn that is, who was asleep in his bunk....doh.
We tied up beside 'Chili' as a very weary looking Bjorn emerged from below. It turned out that he had said farewell to 2 visiting friends the same day and had only managed to catch 1 or 2 hours sleep the night before.
It was great to meet up with him again....
P.S. As mentioned previously, the trouble now we're having with the blog is signal versus time. When we've got signal we're too busy stocking up the boat, re-fuelling and filling up with water etc. And when we've time. We've no signal! Added to which is the PC uses a lot of power from the batteries, so we have to be careful there.
Loch Aline, United Kingdom - Onward and Upward...
Well, we had a lovely night at our anchorage in Shuna. We walked Scamp and then played around in the bay (in the dingy) with two resident seals. Great fun! Each time we moved towards them they would dive, only to re-surface where we'd just come from. Very inquisitive and cheeky chaps! We returned to Tiger where Conny continued to watch them on and off through the night. After our return to the boat they later came out on to some rocks in the bay to spend the night.
The next morning we prepared for another tense passage. This one by the name of 'Cuan Sound', a short cut avoiding the 'Sound of Luing' but one with it's own list of casualties (as we later learnt from a nearby resident). Again the close proximity to spring tides amplified the dangers and get it wrong, and we'd be heading against an 8 knot flow and literally 'uphill' water (in full flow a form of rapids develop which have a 2 or 3 foot drop off) . I double checked the times and off we went. It soon became a fuss about nothing and apart from some turbulence at the beginning, we chugged through admiring the scenery.
On we went to our next anchorage at a Puilldobhrain, a very popular place 10 or so miles south of Oban. Bjorn (the Danish guy we met on east coast in 'Chili') had phoned us a couple of days earlier and at that time had only been 30 odd miles north of us. We'd made some outline plans to meet up here with Bjorn at this anchorage but with quite loose timescales. Imagine our surprise then on seeing Chili already at anchor in the bay. Out came the foghorn and we gave 3 long blasts to announce our arrival. How embarrassing! As our view of the bay opened up, we found ourselves being looked at by the occupants of practically every boat! Apart from Bjorn that is, who was asleep in his bunk....doh.
We tied up beside 'Chili' as a very weary looking Bjorn emerged from below. It turned out that he had said farewell to 2 visiting friends the same day and had only managed to catch 1 or 2 hours sleep the night before.
It was great to meet up with him again....
P.S. As mentioned previously, the trouble now we're having with the blog is signal versus time. When we've got signal we're too busy stocking up the boat, re-fuelling and filling up with water etc. And when we've time. We've no signal! Added to which is the PC uses a lot of power from the batteries, so we have to be careful there.
No comments:
Post a Comment