The Foul weather gear that we hired does its job but my fingers, toes and face are so cold that it hurts, but the wind is up and the sailing is exciting. We decide to follow our passage plan we made yesterday and head up to Holy Loch. It's a lot of tacking to make way, and we have to abandon our exact plan to get to where we're going but this is what they call pilotage and our bearings and waypoints are spot on, which bring us into Holy Loch Marina where we run aground. This, it turns out is not because we miscalculated the tide, but because of an undredged berth,....... it' not our fault.

Thursday morning is bright and clear, and the surrounding mountains covered in snow look spectacular. It's still blowing strong though and our Skipper has a tricky exit from the pontoon, catching a stowed anchor on the adjacent boat, whoops, but it's only a small scratch. Manoeuvring a 41ft yacht in a tight space, especially as he's never sailed this boat before, is not a piece of cake I can tell you.
We sail round to the open side of the pontoon and practice docking, which with the high winds was not easy but we all do well with this. Next up is sailing onto a mooring bouy, learning to spill the sails to slow down. Suddenly from out of nowhere the wind gets up and we're in a fierce hailstorm, time to tie up for lunch till it passes.

We plan another passage of about 12 miles which takes us to a marina just north of Greenock for dinner before our night sail back to Ramsey harbour. The night sail takes us about four hours, and just after we set off we're visited by a high speed police RIB. They tell us that a nuclear submarine will be following us out, and we need to stay out of it's way. Ferries criss cross our path so we need to keep vigilant at all times, this is a very busy area. As the dark descends it also gets very cold as we all scan the dark waters for various lights that mark our way. The night sky is crystal clear as the stars drift above our masthead and by the time we reach Bute, and Ramsey harbour the sea is almost flat calm.