Leaky

Here's todays offering:

The forecast rain started with a series of high intensity showers in the early hours each time loud enough to wake us.

By day break it had become constant heavy rain. Ever the optimists we dozed waiting for it to ease. Eventually it did so and we got on with the business of a wet start.

Later than planned we put on at 10am and made our way out of Loch Ewe and up the coast to Greenstone Point. Yesterdays swell was still with us and the trip up was pretty lumpy, albeit that the wind had now dropped to a more manageable SW F4. Confirmation that our decision of yesterday to retreat into Loch Ewe had been a good one.

From Greenstone we head across the 7.5km to Priest Island, the most southerly of the Summer Isles (although with air temp below 10 deg they certainly didn't feel very summery) . As we did so the rain returned and our target faded into a grey shroud. On our crossing we were accompanied by a Fulmar who seemed to enjoy buzzing us. On one occasion his low level approach was up the back of the wave in front of Gavin so he simply materialised on Gavins bow. Not sure who got the bigger fright.

An hour or so later two cold wet paddlers landed on Priest Island to refuel and warm up before the next leg.

The crossing to Tanera Beg was made tricky by the need to run at a slight angle to the following swell, with occasional big sets coming through to spice things up, but at least the sun had appeared.

Stopping briefly on Eilean Fada Mor we headed on into the wee harbour opposite Isle Ristol and a friendly crofters field for the night.

This gave us a chance to investigate the ingress of water into Gavins rear hatch. We traced it back to a crack along the skeg box. Given that the boat is virtually brand new you could say he was a tad displeased. Fortunately we have a glass repair kit with us and made a temporary repair. Not pretty but hopefully it'll do the trick. We'll find out in the morning.

Distance travelled: 31km
Total travelled: 166km
Ferrocity of midgees: nil. Still grounded by winds