Mull, Rum and a trip to Skye

While the gale blows over I will go for a walk, find the highest point near to me on Mull and see what a force 8 feels like at 600 ft. Good plan? Hmm. I got rained on, hailed on and even sunned on, not to mention pretty well blown off my feet! Still, it was nice to be walking again. I saw several groups of deer, prolific on the islands (venison seems to be their staple meat). Despite the wind the afternoon turned out to be nice; I diverted my walk to visit Glengorm Castle, not a bad pad for the Laird of Mull!

Tuesday 14 May I awoke to the pitter patter of rain on the cabin roof. Some say that it’s a nice sound when you are snug in you bunk. Aaaarrrgh! I dragged myself out in temperatures way too low to sustain human life (well spirit anyway), able to see my breath in the cabin. The forcast was for a brisk westerly with strong northerlys following it so I wanted to get north before having to fight headwinds.

Happily the rain soon stopped and despite angry skys to the south there were blue skys to the north. Was I going to be chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Well I found it, 4 hours of sunshine, marvellous! I took off my woolly hat and winter mits, mistake, they soon went back on. Its so cold!!

The island of Rum appeared on the horizon; its quite a lump of rock rising over 2000’  up from the sea flanked by Eigg, Muck and Canna, collectively known as the ‘Small Isles’.

I sailed between Rum and Canna, two stunningly beautiful islands. I very much want to stop and explore but I need to get up to Skye to beat the forthcoming northerly winds; I will visit on my way back across from the Hebrides.

30 miles north was Skye, the Cuillin Mountains soaring straight up 3000’ out of the sea; sadly they were shrouded in cloud by the time I got there. I arrived at Skye after an 8 hour sail to some angry skys, passing Talisker, the distillery, in a spectacular spot. 

The wind dropped right off so I pulled out the fishing rod, unsuccessful to date, score!! Not only are the mackerel back in from their wintering grounds but they are now on my plate!
The first of the season are always the tastiest. The wind then picked up from the north as forcast, the sun came back out and I had a lovely sunny run into the lock as I had a bowl of piping hot rhubarb crumble and custard, lovely! I anchored at the head of the loch with the Cuillins behind me, now completely lost in the cloud; hopefully I’ll get to see them sometime!

The next day I did 30 miles on the bike, up to the base of the Couillins, over to the east coast of Skye and back over the hills. A tough ride in windy and showery conditions. In the chilly morning the Cuillins were showing their lower 1000’, the upper part of which was newly covered in snow;  it’s chilly here!