Loch Scavaig - 05 July 2006 (day 46)

Yacht Gothik

At Anchor

Loch na Cuilce (Loch Scavaig)

Isle of Skye

Highland

05 July 2006

Click here to see a map.

Logged distance: 20M

Chart distance: 22M

Time under way: 4h15m

Wednesday 05 July 2006

Early morning Eigg. Keith was up at at 03:58 (for a pee) and took this lovely photograph of the island of Eigg. Having been in the ownership of two previous lairds as plaything, the islanders (the people who lived there as tenants) decided they'd had enough and put a plan together to try and change the situation. On the 12th of June 1997, after a public appeal, the 47 adults and 21 children took ownership of the island for the princely sum of £1.5 million. Now it is their plaything.

Sadly, Eigg was not for breakfast. We were sailing by today, taking advantage of the calm weather to anchor in Loch Scavaig on the Isle of Skye, beneath the jagged peaks of the Cuillins. The Admiralty Pilot (of 1894) describes the anchorage; "...In northerly winds, which come on very unexpectedly, the gusts descend the steep sides of Grasbheinn in sudden and most violent squalls, driving a cloud of foam, like a water spout, before them with a roar like thunder...". The loch is an impressive place to be and one I wanted to visit - having been there many years before as a shore bound walker. Obviously it is not somewhere to shelter in anything but good weather. Eigg would have to be missed.

Before leaving Muck - here is a picture of the farm at Gallanaich. Owned by the laird.

Our passage northward through the Sound of Eigg (between Rum and Eigg) was mostly uneventful. The wind was low and no - the sails went up and down, the engine on and off - for the best part of the trip. We were in the company of dolphins from time to time (possibly the same pod) but they never stayed with us for too long - no doubt we were moving too slowly for them.

The clouds hung over Skye, they were not particularly low but the Cuillin Hills are high and so unfortunately we rarely got to see the tops. On our approach to Loch Scavaig the wind picked up from the west. This created some gusts but nothing worth worrying about. We edged our way in and snaked around various rocks and islets. The feeling of being almost encircled by such huge mountains in a boat was truly awesome. The loch was busy, three yachts were already at anchor and another was fast approaching from behind us - this made the anchorage just about full. Generally, anchoring fairly close to one another is not a problem; boats lie head to the wind or tide and as the wind or tide turns so do all the boats - their relative positions remain more or less unchanged. The problem with an anchorage ravaged by squalls, such as Loch Scavaig, is that two boats, even those close together, may not experience the same wind force or direction. Swinging toward one another (instead of with one another) can be a problem.

In this picture we are at anchor, facing south east and looking out toward the entrance. Although the sun is still high in the sky it is behind the mountains making this a fairly gloomy place to spend the evening. The gloom however adds to the unique feel of the place.

Facing east of south east, the cloud had come off the tops, was racing around from the west and whipping past the loch entrance.

There were some good streams running down the mountainside. After dinner, Ben and I decided to go ashore to see if we could fill some containers with which to top up our water tanks. Gothik carries 90 litres of fresh water (about 9 buckets). We've been good at making it last a long time. The biggest saving has been to use seawater for boiling our vegetables, pasta, rice etc. Rinsing the dirty dishes in seawater before washing them in fresh has also helped enormously. All of a sudden 90 litres goes a long way.

The biggest bonus to our trip ashore was discovering the water was not an ice-cold stream, instead, it was warm. It was likely the stream came from an overspilling lake and thus the water was simply the top few centimetres or so of warm surface water. Anyway, where it came from didn't really matter - what really mattered was that it was warm enough to jump in. We found a suitable pool in the stream and had a bathe. We also found a cascade that made a perfect shower. Too bad we didn't think of bringing the soap... tomorrow morning we'll be back.