Despite the unpromising news on the Ardbeg website, I'd come this far so went ashore this morning at 10am. The cafe caravan was open, but I could only get a coffee and brownie - not the gourmet breakfast I'd been looking forward to! No chance of a tour or tasting, but the shop was open.

Somewhat poorer I headed back aboard. When the tide was ready, I dropped the mooring and headed back out to sea. Initially I'd feared yet another calm day, but in fact I had a fairly steady NW 10-12kts. It got diverted and weakened a bit by the Mull of Oa, the headland on the SW corner of Islay, but not too much. Once round the headland and clear of its tidal over falls, I found that close hauled I could almost make my course for the island of Orsay, just off the Rhinns of Islay. With 1-2kts of tide with me, I made great progress over the smooth sea - a wonderful sail.

Approaching the narrow inlet, I dropped the sails and nearly got seriously caught out. The tide had a strong westerly sweep across the entrance, and I had to put the engine on full bore to get back into the entrance rather than be swept westward onto the An Coire rock. This is warned about in the pilot book, but the suddenness and strength of the tidal effect caught me off guard. Fortunately the engine behaved and was strong enough to correct things.

Once inside, the sea was smooth and the anchorage reasonably protected, though the tide runs through fiercely. I had to motor forward through the water at about 1kt in order to move backward over the land slowly to set the anchor!

It's proving a bit of a rolly anchorage - certainly not somewhere to stay for a long time - and it's now raining and turning rather cold. So a pressure cooker stew for supper, an early night, and back to Port Ellen tomorrow morning.

Log of this passage