LongHouseLife

#lhl #Sailing #MirrorDinghyRestoration #Pakwâci

I walked over the hill back to the beach at Doune today. The weekend has been very stormy here with wind in excess of a constant 30kts, and today was the first opportunity to fetch her back.

Some intense rain downpours on the walk to Doune, but brighter and dryer when I arrived.

After bailing out the weekends rain collection and re-rigging the boat I dragged her down the pebble and boulder beach back to the water, leaving some unusual geological rocks behind (they all seemed to have Blue streaks on them..!)

Just as I was beginning to leave the beach the wave height increased, making the launch quite exciting. I was so focussed on leaving the beach that I had not noticed the wave height out in the bay and beyond in the Sound of Sleat... With Main and Jib set I Close Hauled out into the breaking maelstrom, I almost had second thoughts about trying to get home... Anyway I persevered and watching the gaps between breaking waves made a couple of tacks to escape the bay. Once out far enough to Beam Reach on Port tack and not be in the zone where the waves were either breaking or rebounding from the rocky cliffs and shoreline, I made way South towards Mallaig. This was an interesting experience to say the least. I was now on a course that generally had me beam on to the rollers and surf. A constant lookout was needed to steer over some of the larger or breaking waves, otherwise the roll of the boat and the wind in the sails made keeping balance a rather fine exercise.

Aiming for the gap and small area of shelter behind Green Island I was MORE than happy to be able to Hove-To. I dropped the Main and Jib, sorted myself out (mostly getting the boom up and the main tied away, re-hoisted the Jib alone and now on a dead run surfed my way into the entrance of Loch Nevis. Again I was happy and could relax slightly once into the inner loch where the wave height reduced from 2+m to around 1m or less and I sailed the remaining 4km back to the slip under Jib and Bare Poles. Arriving approx 1.75 hours after leaving the beach. 13km in total.

Around 15 minutes after getting in to the house, the rain began again and has not stopped since!

I think that for me today this was enough Adventure.

Map: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/untitled-map_356546