Tyree to South Uist

Mark Rosenthal

We saw the 3 super motor yachts, that we had seen as we left the Ross of Mull, in line racing north. The wind continued at around 10 - 12 Kt until aroun 10:00 when it started to die away. Our speed over the ground dropped to around 5kt on a course of 330. This is when we saw the first significant pod of common dolphins. The approached us from our port quarter and played around under the boat around the bow, beautiful to watch! After about a half hour break we saw a second smaller pod at 56-43.72N 6-54.5W. With all our first round of watches nearing completion we are now some 21Nm to our destination at Eriksay. 15:00 winds too light for the spinnaker and battery power down to 11.5, dropped the spinnaker and the main to motor the last 3.5 nm to the first waypoint into the An Anacarsaid Mhor. Conditions in the bay made it quite difficult to anchor safely but we ended up on the south side of the bay to the east missing two pots. 16:0 on anchor and checking swing as we were very close to the rock face. Following discussions it was decided that we would have dinner at anchor and then move up to Loch Eynort. The plan for getting Tess to her transport options on the 18th led to more discussions on how to spend the remaining days, a gradual move with short hops up the east coast, weather dependent to get us to LochMaddy in time for Tess’s departure. Having discovered that the inflatable dinghy pump had lost a steel retaining strip we jury rigged the pump, glue, duct tape and string being the chosen repair items. Anyway it worked and we were able to reinflate the dinghy ready in case anyone needed to go ashore before we set off. Al cooked macaroni cheese while we were tending to the tender and then we prepared to lift the anchor at 20:15. By now the warmth was beginning to fade a little but with very little wind and that there was was riptht on the nose, so motoring was our only option. ETA at the little marina is 22:05. With the srain in gently setting the glare on the water as we go west makes it difficult to see any pots etc. and now it is getting quite chilly.