Day 11 Fingel's Cave!
We were very reluctant to leave the sound it was so lovely and when we woke up this morning there was not a breath of wind and so the water was like a mill pond and we could even see our anchor in 8m of water.
Eventually we decided that there is too much of Scotland to see to stay another night so at 10:30 we reluctantly pulled up the anchor(A mistake I think) and set off for Ulva via Staffa. Staffa is almost in a direct line from Iona to Ulva so we had to veer towards it to see Fingel's cave. It would have been much better first thing in the morning when the "tripper" boats would not have been there. Anchoring was not recommended because the area is rocky but some yachts were indeed anchored. After a few photographs to prove we had been there we continued to our chosen anchorage.
We were heading for an anchorage between ULVA and Gometra. The people we had met on the beach recommended it to us. I have to be honest and say that it is a more secluded anchorage but not a patch on the sound for beauty. Also the sound had clear water over white sand whereas this anchorage is either weedy or muddy as you cannot see the bottom and neither of us fancied a swim. The water temperatures here are 13-15c so you need to be pretty brave to get in and if we had stayed I have no doubt that I would have gone for a swim.
However, Linda made good use of here time here by writing 18 thank you notes to all her girls and plans to post them in Coll tomorrow and we both hope that they will be franked Coll as it will bring a smile to the face of all the girls. So that it the plan for tomorrow. We are trying to book a berth for Tobermory for the weekend but as we have had no mobile signal we have no idea if they have space. We are also trying to book restaurants but I suspect it will be too late now. We have had two days without mobile or internet connection it is quite strange. There is no TV signal either but we can get R4 and sometime R2.
PS the weather reached us today it was very warm. We even put the Bimini up in Scotland, I would not have put money on that.
Eventually we decided that there is too much of Scotland to see to stay another night so at 10:30 we reluctantly pulled up the anchor(A mistake I think) and set off for Ulva via Staffa. Staffa is almost in a direct line from Iona to Ulva so we had to veer towards it to see Fingel's cave. It would have been much better first thing in the morning when the "tripper" boats would not have been there. Anchoring was not recommended because the area is rocky but some yachts were indeed anchored. After a few photographs to prove we had been there we continued to our chosen anchorage.
We were heading for an anchorage between ULVA and Gometra. The people we had met on the beach recommended it to us. I have to be honest and say that it is a more secluded anchorage but not a patch on the sound for beauty. Also the sound had clear water over white sand whereas this anchorage is either weedy or muddy as you cannot see the bottom and neither of us fancied a swim. The water temperatures here are 13-15c so you need to be pretty brave to get in and if we had stayed I have no doubt that I would have gone for a swim.
However, Linda made good use of here time here by writing 18 thank you notes to all her girls and plans to post them in Coll tomorrow and we both hope that they will be franked Coll as it will bring a smile to the face of all the girls. So that it the plan for tomorrow. We are trying to book a berth for Tobermory for the weekend but as we have had no mobile signal we have no idea if they have space. We are also trying to book restaurants but I suspect it will be too late now. We have had two days without mobile or internet connection it is quite strange. There is no TV signal either but we can get R4 and sometime R2.
PS the weather reached us today it was very warm. We even put the Bimini up in Scotland, I would not have put money on that.
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Staffa -
Writing "thank you"s on the go.