Recommended
pilot books
■ The Yachtsman’s Pilot to the West
Coast of Scotland: Crinan to Canna,
The Yachtsman’s Pilot to the Isle of
Mull and Adjacent Coasts, The
Yachtsman’s Pilot to the Western
Isles – all by Martin Lawrence.
■ The Scottish Islands: The
Bestselling Guide to Every Scottish
Island, by Hamish Haswell-Smith.uncomfortably in the short chop coming
straight into the bay. The best anchorage
would have been Vatersay Bay but I was
keen to land on Sandray, a new island for
me. Sandray is similar to Pabbay with a
sandy bay on the southeast side but I
hoped that Sgeir Leehinish would provide
a little shelter from the swell. Tucked in as
close to the western shore as possible,
the rolling wasn’t too bad. From Carnach
hill we could see another yacht anchored
in Bagh Ban (‘White Bay’ is a confusingly
common name), on the north side.
In the evening a loud exhalation close
alongside announced the arrival of a pod
of bottlenose dolphins, who circled the
bay several times.
As ever, I was reluctant to leave the
Western Isles, but it made sense to go
while there was a nice westerly breeze to
cross the Sea of the Hebrides.
There was just enough wind to sail all
the way back to Gunna. We even hoisted
the old ‘spinoa’ a sail that hasn’t been out
of the bag for many years. It’s not the best
cut downwind sail but it looked pretty with
its rainbow colours.
It was calm again as we left Gunna next
day, later turning into a beat towards Iona.
The one disappointment of the trip had
been rather a lack of cetaceans, so I was
delighted when a minke whale surfaced
quite close. It is worrying how few
porpoises we saw, despite idealconditions for spotting them, in areas
where they are usually common.
On our last evening we were anchored
off Iona, squeezed into a tiny inlet with a
shoreline to the rocks.
We were enjoying the antics of a grey
seal which was fascinated by the fenders
buoying the line, when the tranquillity was
suddenly broken by a Pan-Pan call on the
VHF. A yacht was becalmed and drifting
with the tide near the Sound of Iona. The
transmission was very faint but it soon
became apparent that we could hear them
rather better than Stornoway Coastguard.
I was wondering if I should offer to help
and trying to remember the correct
procedure for responding to a distress call
when the Coastguard asked if any other
vessel could act as relay. No-one else
replied, so I spent the next half hour
passing messages until the Ross of Mull
mobile coastguard team established
communication with the yacht and
Tobermory lifeboat was on the way.Notorious passage
We could have returned to Craobh by the
Sound of Luing but I thought Aleko would
like to see the Gulf of Corryvreckan.
The pilot books are a little vague about
when it is safe to go through – the main
advice being to avoid the notorious
passage altogether – but I knew my
parents, not the most adventurous sailors,
used to pass through quite regularly. The
east-going ebb is less violent than the fl ood
and it was neaps so I reckoned it should
be OK even with the full fl ow of the tide.
We raced through at up to nine knots,
encountering lots of swirls and upwelling
but no overfalls. I suspect Aleko, who
wanted to see the whirlpool, found it an
anticlimax. It was nice to fi nd a little breeze
to sail the last few miles and the return to
the marina was without incident.
We had covered no great distance
(about 250 miles) but ten islands in two
weeks is my idea of a great cruise.
Thanks to the fabulous weather we had
stayed in many anchorages that tend to be
described as ‘occasional’ and the oilskins
never came out of the bag. Aleko says he
will crew for me again – maybe next
time we’ll get down to Islay.ABOVE Pictish
symbol stone on
Pabbay
RIGHT Kalessin
heading out of
Mingulay Bay
HEBRIDES
LEFT Kalessin
anchored off
Eilean Mor, looking
across to Coll,
near high water
RIGHT Berneray
seen from
Mingulay