The day Dave went for a swim (but forgot to take his clothes off)

We had a cracking sail up to Tobermory, wind, flat water and even a bit of sun. We ripped past the Loch leading up to Fort William and Ben Nevis (sadly buried in the cloud) but past our first Scottish castle on the way, Duart Castle. Tobermory is a pretty place, its lovely colourful houses now a trademark.

Friday 10 May was a beautiful morning, flat calm and sunny with a forecast of more of the same. We were up at 6 as we had a long day planned; the blue sky calling us to weigh anchor from Tobermory. Two hours later…… yes, it was raining (but it was late afternoon before our force 6 returned). 

Our first stop was the island of Staffa, a few miles off the west coast of Mull and home to Fingal’s cave, named for an Irish warrior who helped defend the Hebrides against the marauding Vikings and made famous by the composer Mendelssohn who was inspired by the cave to write his Hebrides overture. The island has a band of 12m high basalt hexagonal columns rising out of the sea, in parts the columns have been twisted into dramatic and contorted shapes. This is the result of the same volcanic activity that created the Giants Causeway on the north coast of Ireland that I visited last year. 

The rock is almost black, the columns hexagonal shape is caused by slow cooling volcanic lava. The cave is cut into the cliffs columns.

An hours brisk sail north (in the rain) took us the rather wonderfully named Treshnish Isles, the principal island, Lunga, being home to a colony of Puffins. We anchored close to the shore for a short dinghy ride to the rock strewn beach (in the rain). When we went ashore at Staffa, Dave had almost come to grief boarding the dinghy because he had stepped into the dinghy but still held his weight by hanging on to the pier, a natural enough but somewhat hazardous reaction to climbing aboard a flimsy dinghy. The dinghy of course is pushed outwards by the weight on his feet and he is left hanging on as his body angle increases and the gap between dinghy and pier gets larger; cause of much hilarity but asking for an unplanned dip. At Lunga I encouraged Dave to commit to the dinghy, not hang about in no mans land and commit he did! He jumped, landed squarely in the dinghy, which proceeded to skid sideways with the impact and Dave flopped backwards into the drink!

I can report that automatic inflating life jackets do work; Dave popped up with a florescent collar inflated round his neck spluttering somewhat. He grabbed the side of the dinghy (rather worryingly it became immediately apparent that he would be unable to climb back into the dinghy with an inflated lifejacket bulging in front of him and there was no way to quickly deflate the jacket). A combination of me rowing and him paddling with one hand got him the 2 metres back to the boat where he was able to haul himself back on board using the stern swim ladder. A little shaken (but not stirred) he declared that I had had my swim (a few days previously on ‘the’ sunny day) and it was his turn! 

Shortly after the boat resembled a Chinese laundry!

Dave was wringing out his clothes I went ashore to see the Puffins. It is breeding season and there were hundreds of Puffins lining the cliff top guarding their nests. They dig nests in the soil along a band up to 10’ back from the cliff edge, about 6” down and going at least 12” down and horizontally. There was a lot of toing and froing with twigs and other nest like stuff.

They are very endearing creatures, looking at you with their brightly coloured beaks and a slightly cocked head as if you are a little mad!

My new anchor is fantastic. Each time we have lifted it I have been unable to pull it out with the very powerful winch and have had to drive it out with the engine. Very encouraging; good news indeed.