Last Tuesday Little Else finally moved off her mooring for a week of mostly motoring, in perfect sunny warm weather, which only lacked a gentle breeze to make it good sailing weather. Crew was Rose, who has been doing lots of sailing courses and is keen to perfect her sailing skills in cruising boats. Our first destination was Loch Spelve on Mull, where we anchored for the night, before heading up the Sound of Mull on Wednesday to Lochaline, where again we anchored. In the morning on Thursday we finally had a bit of a breeze, and sailed most of the way from there to Tobermory, where we stayed on the pontoon for two nights. While on the pontoon we saw Fair Winds, which used to belong to our old pals Tony and Joyce, before they sold it to buy Reeve. Also Margaret, who has a house in our row, stopped by to say hello.
The sunny weather persisted, and we had a good walk to the lighthouse on Friday. A great meal at Cafe Fish followed, that evening, and on Saturday we headed back out and motored back south towards Puilladobhrain, the fairly poorly kept secret anchorage on the Firth of Lorn. We were amazed to see in the water in front of us, as we negotiated the narrow entrance, a deer swimming across from the mainland to the island on our right! It stepped elegantly ashore, shook itself, and went off to graze the island. Meantime we had to tear ourselves away from watching it and concentrate on anchoring. There were not that many yachts there, and we spoke to a young man in a plywood kayak which he told us he had made himself. Rose was worried by his lack of safety features on the kayak, but is was a beautiful piece of work, and he told us it breaks up into three pieces and can be packed inside his car!

On Sunday morning we raised anchor and motored down Fladda, hung a left at the bottom, and headed for Loch Melfort. A breeze helped us for a lot of the way, and we picked up a mooring off Melfort village.

Imagine my amazement when I saw a very familiar boat approaching. Pictured above, this yacht belonged to friends of ours in Lagos, Portugal. It had since been brought back to Falmouth, and had been sold last year. And here it was picking up the mooring next to us! Small world? I know it!

Back to Ardfern on Monday in less good weather, in a bit of a breeze. Two casualties of the trip were the outboard engine, which refused to start, as well it might, as it has not been properly serviced in some time, and also the on-board domestic (car) radio, which kept resetting. I will sort these both out before the trip to Ireland later this month.