Tanera Mór, Summer Isles - 23 July 2006 (day 64)

Yacht Gothik

At Anchor

Arcaseid Driseach

Tanera Mór

Summer Isles

Highland

23 July 2006

Click here to see a map.

Logged distance: 11.5M

Chart distance: 12M

Time under way: 3h 40m

Sunday 23 July 2006

An easy day today - probably just as well - twelve miles to Tanera Mór. Tanera Mór, the largest of the Summer Isles, is more or less an 'L' shaped piece of land about 1 mile in length along each of its facets. It was purchased in 1996 (from the Summer Isles Estate) for £700,000 by a family of farmers from Wiltshire. Traditionally the islands were used for summer grazing (hence the name) and have been habited on and off over the years.

The wind was light - on and off, between force 0 and 4 - but there was no hurry and we sailed without the engine for the best part of the day.

Once anchored, Will donned his wetsuit, flippers and goggles. Armed with a harpoon gun he set off in search of some fish for dinner while Keith, David and I sat on the deck with a beer and chatted idly. It was cold outside - just seeing Will's flippers stick vertically out of the surface once in a while made me feel even colder. He was gone a long time but came back to the boat without dinner. Never mind, I'm sure we can rustle something together.

After food we headed ashore with our wash kits and found a lake to plunge into. The wind had dropped a little and the sun had decided to shine for the duration of our dip. As usual the top layer of water was wonderfully warm. As usual it was also soft, peaty brown and drinkable.